Which is the Turkish ‘Zara’ that comes to Athens

By George Lampiris

Athens will be the next Greek city where the Turkish clothing chain, LC Waikiki, will be located, as the company has agreed with Ten Brinke, which is building the retail park on Piraeus Street – which the Fourlis subsidiary recently agreed to buy. , Trade Estate AEEAP -, for the lease of space that will host its new store. The completion of the construction works in the commercial park located at the junction of Piraeus and Kifissos streets is scheduled for March 2022. Then it takes about two months for the new tenants to be able to configure the shops and infrastructure they will need in the areas that rent, to be fully installed in the new commercial space. In the same mall, LC Waikiki will coexist with companies such as AB Vassilopoulos, Premier Capital (McDonald’s) and the Moustakas toy store.

Expansion with 10 stores in Greece and for the Turkish chain Penti until 2023

The specific expansion of a Turkish company is not the only one in our country, as according to the report, another company of Turkish interests, Penti, which specializes in the sale of underwear, had planned its arrival last October on Tsimiski Street in Thessaloniki and in the wider Its planning is to have created a total of ten physical stores in our country by 2023.

Regarding LC Waikiki, we remind you that in 2018 it opened its first store in the Flamingo shopping center in Xanthi and a year later it followed its first store in Thessaloniki and specifically in the shopping center Macedonia located in Pylea. The chain also maintains a presence in the discount shopping center of Sonae Sierra – Bluehouse in Larissa, Fashion City Outlet, but also in Corinth in the shopping center Mare West and in the Patra Mall of Patras. In addition, he has created a concept store called LCW Dream which is also located in the Flamingo shopping center of Xanthi and was the first store with this name in Europe created by LC Waikiki.

More than 1,000 stores worldwide

The company currently maintains more than 1,000 stores worldwide. Created in 1988 in France by French designer George Amouyal and his partner, the name comes from the famous Hawaiian beach (Waikiki Beach), while the first two letters of the brand, “LC”, come from the French words Les Copains (friends) Tema Tekstil, which is affiliated with the Taha Group and is a producer and licensor of LC Waikiki in Turkey, acquired the worldwide rights to the LC Waikiki brand in 1997. It is noted that LC Waikiki LCW Home also maintains clothing stores under the name LCW Home, which it started to develop in the market in 2016.

At 1.45 billion euros the turnover of 2020 internationally – Performance in Greece

Today, in addition to Europe, it has a presence in Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, in countries such as Kenya and Indonesia, in Russia and elsewhere. In 2020, the Turkish interest chain recorded sales of 22.6 billion Turkish lira (1.45 billion euros), employing about 50,000 employees.

Regarding the activity of the company in the Greek market, the turnover in 2020 amounted to 7.18 million euros, increased by 2.91% from 6.98 million euros in 2019. At the same time, the results before taxes became unprofitable to 950.25 thousand euros from 14.9 thousand euros in 2019.