Ceconomy AG is an international retail company headquartered in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in ...

, Germany. Its history goes back to the

Metro Group Metro AG is a German multinational company based in Düsseldorf which operates business membership only cash and carry stores primarily under the Metro brand. Until 2020 it was also active in general retail business through Real division, wh ...

. Ceconomy operates more than 1,000 consumer electronics stores in twelve countries. In addition to MediaMarkt and Saturn, the group owns Deutsche Technikberatung. 32.5% of its sales are generated online.

History

In March 2016, Metro announced a comprehensive reorganization of its business units. Wholesale and food retailing were to be continued separately from the consumer electronics centers. For Cash & Carry and Real, the company wanted to continue to use the "Metro" name. MediaMarkt and Saturn were henceforth to be managed under the umbrella of "Ceconomy". The reorganization was completed in July 2017. Ceconomy and Metro have since been independent sister companies. Both kept their listing on the stock exchange. Ceconomy started as a leading European electronics retailer. To build on this position, the company focused on diversifying and internationalizing its activities. Examples include the acquisition of a majority stake in Deutsche Technikberatung and a minority stake in French electronics retailer

Fnac Darty Groupe Fnac Darty, formerly Kesa Electricals plc, Darty plc and Darty Limited, is a multinational retail company headquartered in Ivry-sur-Seine, France. It was formerly a public limited company (PLC) listed on the London Stock Exchange, until ...

. In response to increased competition in retail, Ceconomy developed closer cooperation with Fnac Darty and M.video, but did not realize those plans. The Fnac Darty affiliation caused conflict with MediaMarkt co-founder Erich Kellerhals. There was a controversy between Ceconomy and Convergenta over the company's

strategy Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship") is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the " ...

and board appointments, which ended in 2020.

Operations

Ceconomy is a

stock corporation A joint-stock company is a business entity in which shares of the company's stock can be bought and sold by shareholders. Each shareholder owns company stock in proportion, evidenced by their shares (certificates of ownership). Shareholders a ...

under German law with its registered office in Düsseldorf. Its shares are traded on the

Prime Standard The Prime Standard is a market segment of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange that includes companies which comply with transparency standards higher than those of the General Standard, which is regulated by law. The Prime Standard includes quarterly repo ...

Deutsche Börse Deutsche Börse AG () or the Deutsche Börse Group, is a German company offering marketplace organizing for the trading of shares and other securities. It is also a transaction services provider. It gives companies and investors access to gl ...

. Ceconomy was part of the MDAX from 2017 to September 2018 and has since been part of the

SDAX The SDAX (German abbreviation for ''Small-Cap-deutsche Aktienindex'') is a stock market index composed of 70 small and medium-sized companies in Germany. These so-called ' small caps' rank directly below the MDAX (mid-cap) shares in terms of or ...

. The largest shareholders include the investment holding company Haniel, the Meridian Foundation, the telecommunications company

Freenet Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant, anonymous communication. It uses a decentralized distributed data store to keep and deliver information, and has a suite of free software for publishing and communicating on the Web ...

, and the Beisheim family; there are other institutional investors such as pension funds. The current

executive board A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

consists of Karsten Wildberger (

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

) and Florian Wieser (

CFO The chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization that is assigned the primary responsibility for managing the company's finances, including financial planning, management of financial risks, record-keeping, and financ ...

). The

supervisory board In corporate governance, a governance board also known as council of delegates are chosen by the stockholders of a company to promote their interests through the governance of the company and to hire and fire the board of directors. In civil s ...

is headed by Thomas Dannenfeldt.

Businesses

The core of Ceconomy's business activities is the sale of consumer electronics and the installation and repair of related products. The subsidiaries operate largely independently. Ceconomy is increasingly focusing on linking its stores with online retailing. The omnichannel strategy is seen as the most important building block for further development of the Ceconomy group. Media-Saturn-Holding (or MediaMarktSaturn Retail Group), headquartered in

Ingolstadt Ingolstadt (, Austro-Bavarian: ) is an independent city on the Danube in Upper Bavaria with 139,553 inhabitants (as of June 30, 2022). Around half a million people live in the metropolitan area. Ingolstadt is the second largest city in Upper Ba ...

, bundles business under the MediaMarkt and Saturn brands. The formerly independent retail chains have been affiliated under company law since 1990. The first MediaMarkt store opened in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

in 1979, the first Saturn store in 1961 on

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

's Hansaring. Deutsche Technikberatung (DTB for short), headquartered in Hürth, Germany, is a service company that supports customers with questions about consumer electronics. This includes not only the installation and configuration of devices but also pre-purchase advice. The technicians work either on-site or via remote maintenance.

Notes and references

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Retail companies established in 2017 Companies based in Düsseldorf Consumer electronics retailers of Germany Publicly traded companies of Germany Companies listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange