By Ceyda Caglayan
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey's leading food retailer BIM has not received any invitation or been officially asked by the Canadian government to operate in the North American country, its CEO said.
Haluk Dortluoglu was speaking to Reuters late on Sunday and made the comments in response to reports that said the company was among potential grocery chains that would be asked to invest in Canada.
According to some media reports, Canada's federal government is seeking a foreign grocery store operator to come to the country in an effort to increase competition and provide more options to residents. A list of a dozen potential candidates include Turkey's BIM, along with Germany's Aldi, Lidl and French Les Mousquetaires, the reports said.
"We have not received any official invitation from Canada. As far as we understand, it is an issue of an internal assessment within the Canadian government that has been leaked to the press," Dortluoglu said.
"Canada was not a market we had recently considered to enter. But if we are asked so by the Canadian government, of course we will make an evaluation. We will analyse the market and express an opinion," he added.
Turkish hard-discount grocer BIM, the leading food retailer in Turkey in terms of sales, is currently operating in Morocco and Egypt, as well as Turkey.
According to the latest financial figures released by the company, BIM's nine-month sales stood at 184 billion Turkish lira ($5.64 billion) by the end of Q3 in 2023. Its net income was 8 billion lira in the same period. The company has not released its full year figures yet.
($1 = 32.6012 liras)
(Reporting by Ceyda Caglayan; Editing by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Murali Anantharaman)
