Comparative Study on the Financial Diagnosis of Two German Retailers on the Romanian Market

Retail activity has had an exponential evolution in post-December Romania. If initially ABC-type stores acquired a considerable market share, later, due to the customers’ desire to be able to purchase a wide range of products from the same location, supermarket or hypermarket-type stores appeared. Among these, a significant share on the Romanian market is held by the German retailers Kaufland and Lidl. Kaufland falls into the hypermarket category, while Lidl into the supermarket category, thus generating differentiations in terms of the results of financial diagnostics based on indicators. This article proposes a comparative financial diagnosis, over a horizon of five consecutive financial years (2020-2024, respectively the pandemic and the post-pandemic period), emphasizing aspects such as the distribution of investment values – operating values, financing, debt repayment capacity, safety margin, operating cycle management or the degree of net profit generation. The approach will be both static, focused differently on each financial year, but also dynamic, capturing the general trend of each indicator over the entire analysed period.