Shop Talk

Eckhard Cordes likes football. The chief executive of the

world’s third largest retailer Metro likes German Bundesliga

club Bayern Munich, to be more precise. And he likes giving

examples. “I tend to give examples, sometimes silly

examples,” he admitted at the company’s annual news conference

on Wednesday in Duesseldorf, Germany.

So when he was asked to explain a new structure at Metro’s Cash

& Carry business — which some analysts had seen as a demotion

of the unit’s head Frans Muller, who has to give some of his

responsibilities to Joel Saveuse — he made use of his passion.

    “I’m a fan of Bayern Munich,” he began and went on to say

what a fantastic job Dutchman Arjen Robben had done recently in

the absence of Bayern’s playmaker Franck Ribery. The Frenchman

returned to action in January after three months out due to

injury. “Now, Ribery is back. But just because Ribery is back

doesn’t mean that Robben will now all of the sudden play less

well,” Cordes said.

    “And at Metro, it’s the same: Our Arjen is called Frans and

Franck is Joel. That’s the truth. You will see a management team

as solid as a rock.”

    Even Muller had to smile at the comparison to Bayern

Munich’s deadly duo.