Spanish retailer Mercadona to expand into Portugal

Spanish discount food retailer Mercadona said on Thursday it planned to open four stores in Portugal in 2019, the first foreign investment by the family-owned group after a rapid expansion in its home market.

Mercadona said it would invest 25 million euros ($28.40 million) in the Portuguese project and aims to create 200 jobs there.

Founded nearly 40 years ago in the Spanish region of Valencia, its push at a national level over the last two decades has turned it into Spain's biggest supermarket chain and one of the country's biggest employers, with around 76,000 staff.

Mercadona relies heavily on its own brand of products and unlike rivals like DIA or Carrefour it has shunned acquisitions, preferring to grow organically. It has a market share of around 23 percent in Spain's food retail market, more than 10 percentage points above its closest peers.

It has been opening stores in Spain at a rate of around 60 a year even after the country emerged from a deep recession which pushed many shoppers to seek out discount brands.

In Portugal Mercadona will be competing with the likes of Spain's DIA, local firm Jeronimo Martins, Germany's Lidl and France's Auchan. ($1 = 0.8802 euros)