Lenta pens 15-year lease contract for 36 Moscow supermarkets

London-listed Russian retail chain Lenta has penned a 15-year lease contract for 36 supermarkets in Moscow, which are currently under construction.

The company, which is also quoted on the Moscow Exchange, signed a contract with Edison Negro, which is part of the ADG Group property development company that is building shopping and entertainment centres in residential areas in Moscow.

The 36 future Lenta supermarkets, which consist of 47,00 square meters, are being reconstructed on sites of former Moscow cinemas with the first supermarkets opening at the end of 2018 and the remainder in 2019.

Lenta currently operates 190 hypermarkets in 77 cities across Russia and 50 supermarkets in Moscow, St. Petersburg and the central region with about 1.14m square meters of selling space.

Lenta’s chief executive, Jan Dunning, said that the company has a strong pipeline and will continue to add stores through its normal development process, with a potential to reach over 100 supermarkets in Moscow within the next three years.

Grigory Pechersky, managing director of ADG Group, said: "We are offering our business partner an efficient and scalable way to expand its network across Moscow. The main feature of our project is that we put hospitality and customer service before concrete and square footage aiming to become the leader of the local district neighborhood.

“We are confident that people living close to our center will be visiting it two or three times a week. Moreover, the exceptionally favorable locations and the use of advanced technologies and flexible formats make us uniquely positioned to be the first in the market to offer access to a loyal customer base of 2.5m people residing within 15 minutes walking distance."