Metro Cash & Carry

Metro AG applied for delisting from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in April 2025, with the revocation of its listing terminating its inclusion in the German SDAX index and marking a significant simplification of the wholesale group’s public-market structure. The 2025 delisting follows the 2017 strategic split that separated the original Metro AG into Ceconomy (consumer electronics retail through MediaMarkt and Saturn) and the new Metro AG focused exclusively on cash-and-carry wholesale and food. Metro AG is now controlled by Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský’s EP Global Commerce, which secured majority control through a multi-year tender offer process culminating in the delisting.

Metro AG operates 622 wholesale stores in 21 countries as of September 2025, with primary brand presence under the Metro and Makro banners depending on geography (Makro is used in Latin America, parts of Asia, and some European markets where the trademark predates the Metro acquisition). The company was established in 1964 in Essen, Germany by Ernst Schmidt and Wilhelm Schmidt-Ruthenbeck and built into Europe’s defining cash-and-carry wholesale operator under Otto Beisheim’s leadership from 1967 onward. Metro entered the Swedish and Finnish markets via the May 2023 acquisition of Johbeco AB and its subsidiary Johan i Hallen & Bergfalk, a specialist meat, fish, and seafood supplier, for approximately €100 million.

Metro Cash & Carry’s customer base is structurally B2B rather than consumer-facing: hotels, restaurants, catering operators, independent grocers, convenience stores, kiosks, and small business buyers. Stores typically run 5,000 to 16,000 square meters with membership-only access and approximately 45,000 SKUs spanning food and non-food categories. The format requires large-footprint standalone or suburban-anchored locations rather than enclosed mall positions. For mall operators, Metro is generally not a mall-based tenant counterparty but a destination retail park or industrial-zone neighbor; leasing and real-estate decisions route through Metro’s Düsseldorf commercial organization and country-level subsidiaries that operate semi-autonomously across the 21-market footprint.