Mr. Ian Pye, President of the Central Food Retail Company Limited (CFR) has announced that TOPS has reached agreement to buy the assets and transferring leases, and will convert them to TOPS Supermarket as part of an expansion of its operations.

CFR operates TOPS Supermarket, MarketPlace by TOPS, and City Market by TOPS. The company has an ongoing plan to expand its branch network.

There are 47 branches of all businesses nationwide and the good locations of the Food Lion stores combined with the management expertise of TOPS Supermarket, will strengthen the growth of TOPS in the supermarket business in Thailand.

This deal is the way to expand and strengthen our existing business to reach our customers and respond to their needs.

We will convert 20 stores of Food Lion to TOPS Supermarket in September.

We will reopen the 20 stores by the end of September and that will give us nearly 70 stores in Thailand."

Mr. Ian Pye, President, TOPS Supermarket said: "TOPS wants to be the best and most successful supermarket operator and wholesaler in Thailand, and aims to provide superior quality consumer products with good services and convenient locations.

Due to the agreement to buy the assets from Food Lion, we will be able to serve more than 300,000 new customers.

Eight hundred Food Lion staff will have the opportunity to work at the new TOPS Supermarket.

We expected sales growth of six per cent this year, but now we believe it will increase to 10 per cent because of this expansion of our network."