The Russian retail company Magnet is considering the purchase of 24 large-scale supermarkets of Monetka, the Ural brand; the supermarkets come up to 5,500 sq m on average. These stores might costs up to $70m, Kommersant says.

‘Magnet is interested in buying twenty-four supermarkets that belong to one of the largest provincial companies, the Urals-based Monetka, a source on the market told the newspaper. Monetka’s primary proprietor Roman Zabolotnov confirmed that negotiations were in progress, but ‘no decisions have been made yet.’ Magnet’s co-owner Sergey Galitsky says he is ‘interested in all the chain stores located in Russia.’

Monetka currently runs 396 stores in the Urals; most of these are discounter stores with the area under 500 sq m. The facilities Magnet is interested in are considerably larger – the company is looking for stores with the area between 2,000 sq m and 5,500 sq m. These stores would be suitable for Magnet hypermarkets, whose area comes to 3,000-6,000 sq m on average.