Carrefour is a French multinational retail and wholesaling corporation headquartered in Massy, France. The eighth-largest retailer in the world by revenue, it operates a chain of hypermarkets, groceries stores and convenience stores, which as of January 2021, comprises its 12,225 stores in over 30 countries.
Kingfisher plc is a British multinational retailing company headquartered in London, with regional offices located across the United Kingdom, France, Poland and Romania.
A variety store is a retail store that sells general merchandise, such as apparel, automotive parts, dry goods, toys, hardware, home furnishings, and a selection of groceries. It usually sells them at discounted prices, sometimes at one or several fixed price points, such as one dollar, or historically, five and ten cents. Variety stores do not include larger formats: general merchandise superstores (hypermarkets) such as Target and Walmart. Warehouse clubs like Costco, grocery stores, and department stores are also not considered variety stores.
Metro AG is a German multinational company based in Düsseldorf which operates business membership only cash and carry stores primarily under Metro brand. Until 2020 it was also active in general retail business through Real division, which was sold to an investor consortium.
Virgin Megastores is an international entertainment retailing chain, founded in early 1976 by Sir Richard Branson as a record shop on London's Oxford Street.
Hardware stores, sometimes known as DIY stores, sell household hardware for home improvement including: fasteners, building materials, hand tools, power tools, keys, locks, hinges, chains, plumbing supplies, electrical supplies, cleaning products, housewares, tools, utensils, paint, and lawn and garden products directly to consumers for use at home or for business. Many hardware stores have specialty departments unique to its region or its owner's interests. These departments include hunting and fishing supplies, plants and nursery products, marine and boating supplies, pet food and supplies, farm and ranch supplies including animal feed, swimming pool chemicals, homebrewing supplies and canning supplies. The five largest hardware retailers in the world are The Home Depot, Lowe's, Kingfisher of the United Kingdom, Obi of Germany, and Leroy Merlin of France.
Dixons Retail plc was one of the largest consumer electronics retailers in Europe. In the United Kingdom, the company operated Currys, Currys Digital, PC World, Dixons Travel and its service brand Knowhow.
Sunrise Records and Entertainment, trading as HMV, is a British music and entertainment retailer, currently operating exclusively in the United Kingdom.
Comet, trading as Comet Group, is an online electrical retail chain based in the United Kingdom. The company sold consumer electronics and white goods, along with related products and services, and pioneered the concept of the out-of-town discount warehouse in the United Kingdom.
Praktiker AG was a German hardware store chain which operated in Europe. It was based in Hamburg and opened its first store in 1978 in Luxembourg under the name bâtiself. Initially owned by ASKO, the chain became a division of Metro AG after the merger of ASKO with Metro Cash & Carry in 1995. It was spun off under the name Praktiker Holding in November 2005 and listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Since 2006 until 2011 was listed on MDAX and since 2011 until 2013 on SDAX.
Douglas GmbH is a German perfume and cosmetics retailer based in Düsseldorf. Douglas offers approx. 35,000 products in more than 1,900 stores and franchised outlets in 19 European countries: Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Monaco, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovakia, Norway and France.
Groupe Fnac Darty, formerly Kesa Electricals plc, Darty plc and Darty Limited, is a multinational electrical retailing company headquartered in Ivry-sur-Seine, France. It was formerly a public limited company (PLC) listed on the London Stock Exchange, until it was purchased by the French retailer Fnac in July 2016.
The Baumax AG was an Austrian chain of home improvement stores. It was founded in 1976 by Karlheinz Essl Sr. in the city of Klosterneuburg and operated more than 150 stores in Austria and several countries of Eastern Europe. As of 2010, the company employed over 9,000 people and generated an annual revenue of 1.13 billion euros. When the business came into financial trouble during the financial crisis of 2008–2009, it was finally broken up by creditors in 2015/16.
Profi is a chain of supermarkets and convenience stores with over 1.500 locations in Romania owned by Mid Europa Partners.
OBI GmbH & Co. Deutschland KG is a German multinational home improvement supplies retailing company. It is headquartered in Wermelskirchen and operates 668 stores in Europe, of which 351 are in Germany.
Jolidon is a Romanian lingerie and swim suit manufacturer, founded in 1993 in Cluj-Napoca.
AmRest is a Spanish casual dining, fast-food restaurant and coffee shop operator headquartered in Madrid, Spain. The company runs more than 2300 locations, mostly franchises of KFC, Pizza Hut and Starbucks, and also Burger King until 2022, but also operates its own brands of restaurants. AmRest operates in Spain, Poland, France, Germany, Russia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, China and others.
Barratts was a brand of high street shoe shops operating in the UK and Ireland. The Barratts shoes brand traded from 100 UK and Ireland stores.
Brico Dépôt is a French chain of DIY and home improvement stores, headquartered in Longpont-sur-Orge. The chain was created in 1993 by Castorama Dubois Investment and later purchased by the British group Kingfisher which operates 123 stores in France, 34 in Romania, 28 in Spain and 3 in Portugal.
Big W was a large format chain of megastores owned by the Kingfisher Group in United Kingdom, which operated between 1998 and 2004. Big W consisted of Kingfisher's main retail chains that they owned at the time - Comet, B&Q, Superdrug and Woolworths in one store format. Despite sharing the name with the Australian chain of the same name, the two of them are not related, as they were owned by different companies.
