Former Deutsche Bank VP is building Lidl store chain

Romanian operations of German group Lidl & Schwartz, which recently took over discount store chain Plus in a transaction put at 200 million euros, are overseen by Gabor Teleki, a former vicepresident of Deutsche Bank.

Teleki has been general manager of Lidl Romania for almost a year, since March last year. The German-born has been working for Lidl for almost six years and had previously been general manager of Lidl Romania between 2005 and 2006, after which he held a similar position in Germany.

Lidl has an extremely active presence on the discount segment in Europe, being held by the Lidl & Schwarz group, which also operates discount hypermarkets Kaufland.

The discount operator entered the Romanian market as early as in 2003, when it set up a company, tested the waters for a few years without opening stores, a strategy that culminated in this year's biggest transaction on the Romanian market, whereby it took over 96 Plus stores for around 200 million euros, according to market information. The Plus acquisition brought the German group a market share put by ZF at 38%, which could send it to the no. 1 position.