Gordon Brothers was first engaged by Eroski in 2011 to complete the inventory disposition of seven large hypermarkets around Madrid after they were sold to French retailer E-Leclerc. During the following years, Gordon Brothers executed the retail disposition of another nine hypermarkets, all of which were 35,000-100,000 sq. ft. in size.

Eroski is a Spanish supermarket chain with nearly 1,000 outlets spread across the country. It is run as a worker-consumer hybrid co-operative within the Mondragón Corporation group. The establishments vary in size from the largest hypermarkets, simply named ‘Eroski,’ to smaller ‘Eroski Center’ stores.

Eroski is Spain’s fourth largest food-operator, but costly acquisition and investment programs made the group vulnerable during the financial crisis of 2008 and created a need to refocus their store portfolio.

In 2016, Eroski reached an agreement with French group Carrefour to sell 32 hypermarkets, and Gordon Brothers traded-out the inventory of all 32 stores.

Gordon Brothers has built an excellent relationship with the Basque food-retailer, and our work has continued over the past few years with more than 60 projects, selling through €135 million plus of inventory, and achieving high recovery rates. Gordon Brothers was selected because of its zero stock and financial guarantee promise.

The stock clearance projects led by Gordon Brothers freed up precious management time to focus on restructuring the group. The restructuring process included additional projects which subsequently put Eroski in a solid position in their four key regional markets, and now rank number five in Spain’s food-retail space.

The client was extremely pleased with the management and execution of each project, which is why every hypermarket closure since 2011 has been completed by Gordon Brothers.