St. Petersburg, Russia, 17 December 2018– Lenta (LSE, MOEX: LNTA), one of the largest retail chains in Russia, announces that it has signed a strategic partnership with Li & Fung, a leading global sourcing agency of non-food products.

The agreement provides for upgrading Lenta’s non-food ranges, enhancing quality and improving the efficiency of non-food supplies to Lenta stores. The cooperative efforts between the two companies will primarily focus on developing Lenta’s non-food private labels and delivering a distinctive customer offering. Li & Fung will ensure vendor compliance, initiate product development and assist in organizing shipments from Asian countries to the Lenta stores.

Lenta expects that cooperation with Li & Fung will allow the company to introduce at least 2,000 new distinctive SKUs in the non-food segment to optimise the existing offering and logistics, and significantly cut lead times. Cooperation with Li & Fung will improve Lenta’s agility and speed when reacting to consumer demand in the non-food segment, as well as open new opportunities for differentiation in the segment.

Herman Tinga, Lenta Chief Executive Officer, said: “Differentiation and distinctiveness are a key to successfully winning customers in the current market. We believe that our non-food ranges contribute to a value proposition that will help us attract and retain customers. We want to consolidate our position through distinctive product ranges, and improved agility and speed when reacting to demand shifts. Cooperation with Li & Fung will significantly improve our ability to achieve these goals, as well as enhance our performance across the entire supply chain.”

About Lenta

Lenta is the largest hypermarket chain in Russia (in terms of selling space) and the country’s third largest retail chain (in terms of 2017 sales). The Company was founded in 1993 in St. Petersburg. Lenta operates 237 hypermarkets in 86 cities across Russia and 128 supermarkets in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Siberia, Urals and the Central region with a total of approximately 1,427,677 sq.m of selling space. The average Lenta hypermarket store has selling space of approximately 5,600 sq.m. The average Lenta supermarket store has selling space of approximately 800 sq.m. The Company operates seven owned distribution centres.

The Company’s price-led hypermarket formats are differentiated in terms of their promotion and pricing strategies as well as their local product assortment. The Company employed approximately 50,600 people as of 30 June 2018¹.

The Company’s management team combines a mix of local knowledge and international expertise coupled with extensive operational experience in Russia. Lenta’s largest shareholders include TPG Capital and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, both of which are committed to maintaining high standards of corporate governance. Lenta is listed on the London Stock Exchange and on the Moscow Exchange and trades under the ticker: ‘LNTA’.

A brief video summary on Lenta’s business and its Big Data initiativecan be seen here.

For further information please visit www.lentainvestor.com, or contact:

Lenta
Maria Filippova
Public Relations and Government Affairs Manager
Tel.: +7 812 380-61-31 ext.: 1892
E-mail: maria.filippova@lenta.com

NW Advisors
Russian Media
Anton Karpov & Victoria Afonina
Òel:+7 495 795 06 23
E-mail: lenta@nwadvisors.com

¹FTE (full-time equivalent). Average FTE for 1H2018 was 49,643 employees.