Wholesale giant Metro has "set the course for a new phase of growth", according to Rafael Gasset, its co-chairman and COO, despite the challenges in the HoReCa trade over the past year.
Gasset was commenting at the group's annual general meeting, alongside his fellow co-chairman and Metro CFO, Christian Baier, who described 2020 as a "special year" for the group.
'Shoulder To Shoulder'
"With the start of the pandemic, we very quickly focused all our activities on standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our HoReCa and Trader customers during this challenging time and helping them,” Baier said.
“This enabled us to gain market share, recover rapidly from the impact of the first lockdown wave and take our customer relationships to a new level," Gasset added. "We expect our restaurant customers to recover soon and substantially after the second lockdown."
Elsewhere at the AGM, Metro approved a proposed dividend of €0.70 per share, while Roman Šilha and Stefan Tieben were elected as new members of the Supervisory Board.
In addition, Metro's Supervisory Board re-elected Jürgen Steinemann as chairman of the Supervisory Board.
© 2021 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
