EUR Food Retail (IFC-48827)

Regions
  • Europe and Central Asia
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Countries
  • Albania
  • Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • Bulgaria
  • Croatia
  • Kosovo
  • Moldova
  • Montenegro
  • North Macedonia
  • Romania
  • Serbia
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Financial Institutions
  • International Finance Corporation (IFC)
International, regional and national development finance institutions. Many of these banks have a public interest mission, such as poverty reduction.
Project Status
Proposed
Stage of the project cycle. Stages vary by development bank and can include: pending, approval, implementation, and closed or completed.
Bank Risk Rating
B
Environmental and social categorization assessed by the development bank as a measure of the planned project’s environmental and social impacts. A higher risk rating may require more due diligence to limit or avoid harm to people and the environment. For example, "A" or "B" are risk categories where "A" represents the highest amount of risk. Results will include projects that specifically recorded a rating, all other projects are marked ‘U’ for "Undisclosed."
Voting Date
Dec 8, 2023
Date when project documentation and funding is reviewed by the Board for consideration and approval. Some development banks will state a "board date" or "decision date." When funding approval is obtained, the legal documents are accepted and signed, the implementation phase begins.
Borrower
SG FINANCE & TREASURY LIMITED (Schwarz Group)
A public entity (government or state-owned) provided with funds or financial support to manage and/or implement a project.
Sectors
  • Agriculture and Forestry
  • Industry and Trade
The service or industry focus of the investment. A project can have several sectors.
Investment Type(s)
Loan
The categories of the bank investment: loan, grant, guarantee, technical assistance, advisory services, equity and fund.
Investment Amount (USD)
$ 250.00 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Loan Amount (USD)
$ 250.00 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Project Cost (USD)
$ 529.31 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Currency conversion note:
Bank reported 500
Converted using 2023-11-01 exchange rate.
Bank Documents
Primary Source

Original disclosure @ IFC website

Updated in EWS Nov 25, 2023

Disclosed by Bank Nov 1, 2023

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Project Description
If provided by the financial institution, the Early Warning System Team writes a short summary describing the purported development objective of the project and project components. Review the complete project documentation for a detailed description.

As stated on the project disclosure page, the IFC is supporting (i) expansion of modern food retail in several Western Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, and North Macedonia) by helping Schwarz Group to launch its operations in these new markets; and (ii) the Group’s existing retail operations in Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Croatia and Serbia.
The proposed IFC investment is an up to US$250 million equivalent in EUR A loan (the IFC Loan) for IFC’s own account to SG Finance & Treasury Limited (SG Finance & Treasury), the Irish treasury subsidiary of the Group and IFC’s existing client.

Early Warning System Project Analysis
For a project with severe or irreversible impacts to local community and natural resources, the Early Warning System Team may conduct a thorough analysis regarding its potential impacts to human and environmental rights.

People Affected By This Project
People Affected By This Project refers to the communities of people likely to be affected positively or negatively by a project.

Investment Description
Here you can find a list of individual development financial institutions that finance the project.

Private Actor Relationship
A Private Actor is a non-governmental body or entity that is the borrower or client of a development project, which can include corporations, private equity and banks. This describes the private actors and their roles in relation to the project, when private actor information is disclosed or has been further researched.

Private Actors Description
A Private Actor is a non-governmental body or entity that is the borrower or client of a development project, which can include corporations, private equity and banks. This describes the private actors and their roles in relation to the project, when private actor information is disclosed or has been further researched.

As stated by the IFC, the project sponsor is Schwarz Group, a privately held retail chain based in Germany. It operates mostly in Europe under the Lidl and Kaufland brands. The borrower is SG Finance & Treasury Limited, the Irish treasury subsidiary of the Schwarz Group.

Schwarz Group is a leading European food retailer with operations spread over 31 European countries and the United States. With its headquarters in Germany, the Group employs about 590,000 employees and operates more than 13,700 stores. Schwarz Group consists of 5 organizational divisions: Kaufland, Lidl (retail divisions), Schwarz Produktion (food and beverage manufacturing), PreZero (environmental services and recycling) and Schwarz Digits (IT and digital services such as cloud business and cyber security). Retail divisions have two store formats that operate as independent business lines: Lidl discount stores (about 12,200 stores) and Kaufland discounting hypermarket formats (about 1,500 stores). Both formats are among the leading operations in their respective segments in Europe and serve around 6.5 billion customers per year.

Private Actor 1 Private Actor 1 Role Private Actor 1 Sector Relation Private Actor 2 Private Actor 2 Role Private Actor 2 Sector
- - - - Schwarz Group Client Industry and Trade

Contact Information
This section aims to support the local communities and local CSO to get to know which stakeholders are involved in a project with their roles and responsibilities. If available, there may be a complaint office for the respective bank which operates independently to receive and determine violations in policy and practice. Independent Accountability Mechanisms receive and respond to complaints. Most Independent Accountability Mechanisms offer two functions for addressing complaints: dispute resolution and compliance review.

General IFC Inquiries - IFC Communications:

Address: 2121 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington DC 20433
Telephone: +1 202-473-3800
Fax: +1 202-974-4384

Client - Schwarz Dienstleistung KG:

Finanzen
Phone: +49 (0) 7132 30-797901
Email: Yasemin.Oevuer@mail.schwarz
Address: Stiftsbergstrasse 1, 74172 Neckarsulm, Germany
Website: https://gruppe.schwarz/en

Local Access for Project Documentation:

SG Finance & Treasury Limited
Ormond Building, 31-36 Ormond Quay Upper, Dublin 7, Ireland

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

You can submit a request for information disclosure at: https://disclosures.ifc.org/#/inquiries

If you believe that your request for information from IFC has been unreasonably denied, or that this Policy has been interpreted incorrectly, you can submit a complaint at the link above to IFC's Access to Information Policy Advisor, who reports directly to IFC's Executive Vice President.

ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISM OF IFC/MIGA

The Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO) is the independent complaint mechanism and fact-finding body for people who believe they are likely to be, or have been, adversely affected by an IFC or MIGA- financed project. If you submit a complaint to the CAO, they may assist you in resolving a dispute with the company and/or investigate to assess whether the IFC is following its own policies and procedures for preventing harm to people or the environment. If you want to submit a complaint electronically, you can email the CAO at CAO@worldbankgroup.org You can learn more about the CAO and how to file a complaint at http://www.cao-ombudsman.org

How it works

How it works