Aldi is not a public company. The grocery store is privately owned and is based in Germany. Aldi has two branches: Aldi Nord and Aldi Sud, but both are owned by the same family. Can I buy shares in Aldi?
Theo and Karl Albrecht brothers founded the company in 1946. Their mother owned and operated a small grocery store in Essen, Germany since 1913, and the brothers took over the store. Gradually they turned one store into a chain of grocery stores; until 1960, the brothers owned 300 stores. In 1962, the brothers called the Aldi chain of stores the name Albrecht Diskont.
In 1976, Aldi began to expand his presence in America – they opened a small store in southern Iowa. Today they run about 1,400 stores in the United States and have announced plans to open almost 600 more.
Aldi offers everything you would expect from a grocery store, from canned cans to fresh meat and products. In the UK, Aldi is the fifth largest supermarket. Aldi has a 6.2% market share, which is comparable to Kroger’s presence in the United States. Aldi currently has about 4% market share in the USA. Although you can’t buy Aldi shares, you can certainly expect the company’s expansion to affect other food supplies.
Unfortunately, neither Aldi Nord nor Aldi Süd sell shares, neither in Germany nor anywhere else in the world. The companies are privately owned and the Albrecht family strictly controls the company. Theo died in 2010 and Karl in 2014, which means that their relatives (including children) are the main owners of their food empires.
No sale of shares has both advantages and disadvantages for Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd. The sale of shares usually generates huge money for the company, but it comes at a cost, because it gives shareholders the opportunity to shape what the company does. By not selling shares, the Albrecht family does not have to correspond to the shareholders, and also allows Aldi to think in the long term rather about quarterly profits, as many listed companies do.
