Pepco to launch on Warsaw Stock Exchange
Pepco Group, the owner of Poundland in the UK and Dealz and PEPCO in Europe, has chosen to float on the stock market in Poland rather than London.
The discount retailer, which serves over 50 million customers a month from more than 3,200 stores in 16 countries, has announced that it intends to apply for listing and admission of the company’s shares to trade on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
Andy Bond, Pepco Group chief executive, said: “Today’s announcement of our intention to float on the Warsaw Stock Exchange marks an important milestone for the Group. We are strongly positioned to deliver significant long-term growth, given our market leading customer proposition in the most attractive sector of retail, the scale of opportunity ahead of us as we expand across the entirety of Europe and the investment in strengthening the infrastructure of the business over recent years.
“We have a track record of delivering consistent, market-leading sales and profit growth over the past three years, the foundation for which is a relentless focus on how we provide our customers with the lowest prices on their regular shopping needs across apparel, homewares-led general merchandise and fast-moving consumer goods week in week out.”
Following the successful launch of PEPCO in Italy and Serbia and its entry into Spain this spring, the group now considers that the brand has an opportunity to target the whole of Europe. Pepco Group is also expecting to open 100 stores for its Poundland and Dealz business each year with an initial focus on Spain and Poland.
Bond added: “Our business is even stronger than it was a year ago, including an expanded capability within our dedicated sourcing operation, Pepco Group Sourcing, a significantly improved working capital profile agreed with our key suppliers and an ongoing focus on constantly improving our ESG capability across the group.”
The group has also said it will appoint five new non-executive directors on listing including Richard Burrows as chair. Bond said: “Their combined experience, counsel and insight in financial, operational and governance matters, will be invaluable as we continue to make good progress to meet our ambition to become Europe’s pre-eminent discount variety retailer.”
