The Philippine operator of Ministop today opened its 400th store, with plans underway to rollout at least a hundred more outlets this year.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Robinsons Retail Holdings Inc said the newest store is located at the ground floor of Trion Towers, a residential condominium project of Robinsons Land Corp in Bonifacio Global CIty (BGC). Gokongwei-led Robinsons Retail owns Robinsons Convenience Stores Inc (RCSI), which operates Ministop in the Philippines. “This store opening is strategic given the rapid rise of BGC to become one of the country’s premier commercial and business districts,” Robinsons Retail said. The store in BGC will feature the new look of Ministop with its “warm interiors and hip new design that will make the shopping and dining experience more pleasurable for its customers,” Robinsons Retail said. RCSI targets to end the year with over 500 Ministop stores.

Ministop, which operates 24 hours and seven days a week, is one of the leading convenience stores in Japan. It is the second-largest convenience store chain in the Philippines. The Gokongwei group opened its first store in December 2000 when it entered into a joint venture agreement with Ministop Co Ltd and Mitsubishi Corp. The Robinsons Retail group added 152 stores last year to finish with 1,064 in 2013. About a quarter of the new store openings is located in the Visayas and Mindanao and nearly half in Luzon outside of Metro Manila. Robinsons Retail is the country’s second biggest multi-format retailer, operating 10 formats under six business segments — supermarkets, department stores, do-it-yourself (DIY) stores, convenience stores, drug stores and specialty stores.

From 912 stores at end-December 2012, Robinsons Retail eyes to raise its store count to 1,400 by end-2014. The company recently raised $620 million from a maiden share sale, considered as the country’s biggest initial public offering in history, to primarily bankroll its expansion.

Source: The Philippines Business