French retailer Carrefour to fill up Nakumatt's space

French retailer Carrefour will takeover Nairobi’s Thika Road Mall (TRM) space next month after a struggling Nakumatt Holdings gave it up.In just a week, Nakumatt has closed two shops in Nairobi alone after being evicted from the Junction shopping malls along Ngong road and TRM by the malls' management due to accrued rent arrears.Carrefour's takeover make's it's third shop in Kenya whose local franchise is held by Dubai-based conglomerate Majid Al Futtaim.

The new store is expected to employ 200 people, raising the company’s staff count to 800.

“The opening of our third Carrefour store in less than two years of operations illustrates our ambitious growth and expansion plans in the region,” Franck Moreau, the country manager at Al Futtaim Retail (Kenya), said in a statement.

“This new hypermarket will offer our customers who use the busy highway access to wide variety of products at the most competitive prices, offered at world-class standards.”Nakumatt, however, has written to the owners of Junction Mall demanding continued access of its branch after Saturday's closure. The retail chain accused the landlord of acting in bad faith saying that further delay in opening the premise would lead to legal action.The company says it was denied access of the premises after a fraudulent and misleading public notice by the directors and managers of Junction Mall.Nakumatt is struggling to pay massive debts owed to suppliers estimated at Sh15 billion, a situation that has been piling pressure on its operations.Carrefour’s current stores are at Nairobi’s The Hub and Two Rivers malls.