RIMI Baltic

Rimi store in Tallinn
Company type	Private
Industry	Retail, general merchandise
Founded	2004; 20 years ago (2004)
Headquarters	Riga, Latvia
Area served	Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania
Key people	Giedrius Bandzevičius[1]
Products	Groceries, consumer goods
Revenue	SEK18.482 billion €1.739 billion (2022)[2]
Number of employees	11,200[3]
Parent	ICA
Subsidiaries	Rimi Estonia (Rimi Eesti Food AS) Rimi Latvia (Rimi Latvia, SIA) Rimi Lithuania (Rimi Lietuva, UAB)
Website	https://www.rimibaltic.com/

Rimi Baltic is a major retail operator in the Baltic states based in Riga, Latvia. It is a subsidiary of Swedish group ICA. Rimi Baltic operates 291 retail stores in Estonia (88 stores), Latvia (132 stores) and Lithuania (71 stores) and has distribution centres in each country.^[4]

The interior design of the smaller Rimi hypermarkets (known as compact hypermarkets) can also be seen in ICA's smaller hypermarkets in Sweden, such as ICA Maxi Västra Hamnen in Malmö and ICA Maxi Enköping.

The stores have different profiles, depending on range of products and size:

• Rimi Hyper – hypermarkets
• Rimi Super – supermarkets
• Rimi Mini – supermarkets / convenience stores
• Rimi Express – convenience stores

History and ownership

The retail operator history begins with the opening of the first retail in Latvia, the Dole shopping center, in February 20, 1997.

Rimi Baltic was created in 2004 when Finnish Kesko and Swedish ICA agreed to merge their operations in the Baltic states in a 50/50 joint venture. Rimi Baltic officially began operations on 1 January 2005.^{[citation needed]}

Kesko previously had 6 City market hypermarkets and 45 Säästumarket^{[clarification needed]} discount food stores in Estonia and 5 City markets in Latvia and 19 Supernetto discount outlets in Latvia. ICA previously owned 33 Rimi stores (supermarkets and compact hypermarkets) across Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Following the merger, all the City market stores were progressively converted to Rimi hypermarkets during 2005.

Towards the end of 2006, Kesko decided to pull out of the joint venture and sold all of its shares in Rimi Baltic to ICA. Rimi Baltic became a wholly owned subsidiary of ICA AB from 1 January 2007. Property deals relating to Kesko's ownership of the former Citymarket sites were completed a few days later.^{[citation needed]}

On December 23, 2016, ICA Gruppen concluded an agreement on the purchase of the Lithuanian company UAB Palink for EUR 213 million.^{[citation needed]} Palink managed the second-largest food retail network, IKI in Lithuania.^[5] The Lithuanian Competition Council authorized this acquisition in October 2017 on the condition that 17 Rimi and Iki stores in Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipeda and Panevezys will be sold to third parties.^[6] In mid-March 2018, Rimi Lietuva submitted nominations of potential buyers to the Competition Council. The council did not support them on the grounds that these buyers "would not provide stable and at least as effective competition" as the current company until the deal is implemented. In April, the Competition Council announced that the sale of Iki to Rimi was terminated.^[7]

Rimi in other countries

The Rimi name can also be found in Norway where it has been used on ICA's discount food stores there, but is now operating under the name Coop Norway (the Rimi stores are rebranded to Coop Extra). It has previously been used in Sweden by ICA and in Finland by Kesko, although these stores have since been converted to other formats.

Stores

Rimi Baltic Rimi Baltic operates a grocery retail business and has 297 wholly owned stores in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The properties owned by the Group in the Baltic region are also part of Rimi Baltic.^[8]

 Latvia: 133 stores
 Lithuania: 83 stores
 Estonia: 81 stores