Ahold Delhaize is paying €1.7 billion for Tesco’s Czech and Slovak business. A store-by-store map shows how much of it duplicates what Albert already has.
Ahold Delhaize is buying Tesco’s Czech and Slovak business at an enterprise value of €1.7 billion, taking on more than 360 stores. Ahold puts the price at 7.2 times lease-adjusted EBITDA, or about five times once run-rate synergies are counted.The deal also covers the 113 Žabka convenience stores Tesco runs as franchises, and its distribution centers in Kralupy nad Vltavou, Prešov and Beckov. Tesco expects to close in H2 2027.
In Czechia the deal makes Albert the largest grocer, with almost CZK 119 billion in combined sales against Lidl’s CZK 107.8 billion (Lidl’s figure covers a 15-month period). What Ahold gets is scale rather than momentum: Tesco Stores ČR posted a CZK 387 million net profit in the year to February 2026, but revenue squeaked up just 0.4% to about CZK 44.5 billion.
Blue dots = Albert, Red dots = Tesco
Still, it seems unlikely that every single Tesco store Albert is buying fits its needs or preferences. So, I looked a bit more closely at the coverage of the two chains. Turns out that half of Tesco’s Czech hypermarkets and supermarkets, 77 of 154, have an Albert within 1,500 m as the crow flies. (This assumes a new research tool I’ve been building has the right data, so I’m open to comments)
The overlap piles up in the big boxes: 57 of 91 Tesco hypermarkets have an Albert within 1,500 m, and 15 have one within 500 m. Supermarkets overlap far less, at 20 of 63. The close neighbors are mostly small: of the 46 Tesco hypermarkets and supermarkets with an Albert within 1,000 m, 35 have only have an Albert supermarket to contend with.
Tesco’s own network barely overlaps itself. Leaving out Express, only eight of its hypermarkets and supermarkets have another within 1,500 m. Albert is the opposite, with 198 of its 346 stores already within 1,500 m of another Albert, clustered in Prague (56), Brno (27) and Ostrava (12). No doubt Tesco’s new owner will have to take such issues into account as it decides what to keep.
For landlords and investors, the question is which boxes Albert reformats, which it shrinks and which it lets go. Lidl, Kaufland and Penny will be reading the same map .
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