Investor Guide
2026-10-10 11:15

Who owns supermarket buildings in Germany — the chains or investors?

Both, and the model depends on the chain. Discounters prefer to own: in 2023 ALDI Süd owned about 65% of its German stores (Lebensmittel Zeitung), and Lidl and Kaufland build for themselves by default. REWE and EDEKA supermarkets are, in our experience, overwhelmingly leased from investors: the REWE Group's lease liabilities stood at €14.0 billion at the end of 2025, more than three times its interest-bearing debt.

Discounters build for themselves and sell selectively

At the start of 2023 ALDI Süd owned 1,283 stores, about 65%, and since 2019 it had invested more than €1 billion in them (Lebensmittel Zeitung). The same year it bought back 76 of its stores from Pimco for about €240 million (BNP Paribas Real Estate). Lidl's property brochure says it develops stores "not only as its own properties", that is, primarily as its own; the chain does not disclose what share it owns. Kaufland also prefers ownership: the book value of its real estate was about €4.1 billion in 2020 (Lebensmittel Zeitung).
But discounters sell too, to free up capital for the core business (see Part 4 of the series German Prime Retail). In 2024 Lidl sold 16 stores to Captiva for about €120 million and leased them back (sale-and-leaseback). In 2025, according to Lebensmittel Zeitung, ALDI Nord was selling at least 50–60 properties, and in 2026 it is offering investors sale-and-leaseback deals.

Full-range supermarkets are mostly leased from investors

EDEKA, whose stores are mostly run by about 3,200 independent merchants, and REWE lease most of their supermarkets. This model creates the supply for investors: developers build stores against a lease with a chain and sell them. In 2025 developers accounted for 15% of the volume of food-retail property sold and only 4% of the volume bought (BNP Paribas Real Estate).
These groups buy as well. In its 2026 expansion brochure REWE offers a ground lease (Erbpacht) and purchase alongside leasing, and it named the expansion of its own property portfolio among its investment priorities for 2025. CEV, the EDEKA group's property company, bought 13 retail parks from Hahn Group in 2022, for about €380 million by BNP's estimate. In 2026 it bought the Powerfood portfolio of 37 properties for about €200 million (Cushman & Wakefield).

Chains enter the market as both buyers and sellers

Exhibit 1. Chains and developers are mostly sellers in the market, funds mostly buyers
Market participants in 2025
Share of purchases, %
Share of sales, %
Investment and asset managers
33
28
Special funds
18
4
Closed-end funds
11
—
Chains and other operators
9
12
Property companies
7
8
Insurers
6
—
Developers
4
15
Private investors
—
10
Pension funds
—
6
Other
11
15
Shares of transaction volume in German food-retail property; "—" means the group is not shown separately. Source: BNP Paribas Real Estate.
Chains' sales, in BNP's assessment, usually reflect an optimisation of the store network. Two conclusions follow for the buyer. In a sale-and-leaseback, the rent was set by a seller who wanted a high price (Part 4). And a chain that prefers ownership may, at renewal, move to its own site next door or offer to buy the building.

Implications for investors

1. Find out why the chain does not own the store. At ALDI Süd, Lidl and Kaufland a lease is more the exception, and a sale-and-leaseback, a landowner who would not sell the site or a mixed-use building each carries different risks.
2. Check a leaseback rent against the market. The seller set the rent; the benchmark is an average of €12.23 per m² a month in a Hahn Group sample of more than 700 food stores.
3. Treat the chain as a competitor. ALDI Süd buys back stores, REWE is expanding its own portfolio and CEV buys portfolios: in a bidding process and at renewal, the tenant may turn out to be your rival.
What to check:
• the property's history: whether a developer built it against a lease with the chain, or the chain itself sold the store and leased it back;
• who signed the lease: a group company, a regional company or an independent merchant;
• whether the chain has its own site or store nearby;
• the rent per m² against the average for the format;
• the tenant's options and its right of pre-emption, if the lease provides for one.
See also: ALDI Süd as a tenant: an owner-occupier first, a tenant second; REWE as a tenant: the group signs the lease, the merchant runs the store; Part 4 of the series German Prime Retail
Sources: Lebensmittel Zeitung, 15 May 2020 (Kaufland's real estate), 17 February 2023 (ALDI Süd's ownership) and 11 September 2025 (ALDI Nord's sales); Lidl, property brochure "Vielfalt entwickeln" (2021); ALDI Nord, press release for EXPO REAL 2026 (10 September 2026); REWE Group, financial report for 2025, press release on its 2025 results and expansion brochure (August 2026); BNP Paribas Real Estate, German food-retail investment market reports for Q4 2024 and Q4 2025; Cushman & Wakefield, MarketBeat Einzelhandel Investment Deutschland, Q2 2026; Hahn Group, Retail Real Estate Report 2026/2027 (as reported by LEBENSMITTEL PRAXIS, 3 September 2026); the series German Prime Retail, Part 4; Gordon Real Estate Group experience.
Photo: Jan-Philipp Thiele / Unsplash
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