Fabrice Hofman Huivelde 218 | 9240 Zele | [email protected]

Fabrice Hofman Huivelde 218 | 9240 Zele | Fabrice.Hofman@Ugent.Be

AN ANALYSIS OF DELHAIZE GROUP AND ITS MAIN COMPETITORS’ PRESENCE IN FINANCIAL AND BELGIAN, DUTCH AND U.S. REGIONAL MEDIA

Masterpaper

Master na Master

Meertalige Bedrijfscommunicatie

Universiteit Gent

2010

AN ANALYSIS OF DELHAIZE GROUP AND ITS

MAIN COMPETITORS’ PRESENCE IN FINANCIAL

AND BELGIAN, DUTCH AND U.S. REGIONAL MEDIA

Masterpaper

Fabrice Hofman

I. Beschrijving van de stage

Hoofdstage

Bedrijf

Delhaize Groep Marie Curieplein 40 1070 Brussel Telefoon: +32 2 412 22 11 Fax: +32 2 412 22 22 www.delhaizegroup.com

Stagebegeleider

Barbera Hoppenbrouwers Communications Manager Telefoon: 32 2 412 86 69 E-mail: [email protected]

Afdeling

Investor Relations & External Communications

Taken - Vormgeven, structureren en aanleggen van een databank met artikels uit Belgische, Nederlandse en Amerikaanse kranten en vaktijdschriften over Delhaize Groep, Ahold, Carrefour, Colruyt, Harris Teeter (Ruddick Corporation) en Wal-Mart. - Analyseren van de aangelegde databank en aan de hand daarvan een proactief media- plan opstellen om (het aandeel) Delhaize Group op een meer gestuurde en gestructu- reerde wijze in de media te brengen. - Onderzoeken van de mogelijkheden om Delhaize Groeps aanwezigheid in social media op te starten. Opstarten van accounts op de relevante social media platformen. Plan- nen van content.

Talen tijdens de stage

- Engels - Nederlands - Frans

Stageperiode

26 april 2010 tot 25 juni 2010

Bijkomende stage

Bedrijf

Porter Novelli Louis Mettewielaan 272 1080 Brussels www.pnintellingentdialogue.be

Stagebegeleider

Danny De Vriendt Director E-mail: [email protected]

Afdeling

Hoofdzakelijk PNBR5, het social media lab; maar ook taken voor andere account executives

Taken - Verschillende korte research projecten over social media (zie bijvoorbeeld bijlage 9) - Contacteren van persrelaties om adressendatabase up to date te houden - Research project rond Equate’s congres in Dortmund - Insight Session on biopharmaceuticals and biosimilars for Sandoz - Een press release schrijven voor Compex (zie bijlage 8) - Opstarten Journalism and Social Media Survey (zie bijlage 10)

Talen tijdens de stage

- Engels - Nederlands - Frans

Stageperiode

5 juli 2010 tot 31 augustus 2010

II. Acknowledgements

There are a couple of people I would like to thank. First of all, thank you to Mr. Luc De Bie, coordinator of the MTB program, who organized the visit to the Delhaize Belgium DC Fresh II buildings in Zellik, which eventually led me to meet Mrs. Barbera Hoppenbrouwers (more on this in the preface). Thanks also to Mr. Tom Bruyer who took over Mr. De Bie’s job from the end of January 2010 in a splendid way, who helped me deciding to do my internship at Delhaize Group instead of Barco or Bank van Breda and who stressed that it was a good idea to do a second internship at Porter Novelli Brussels. Other words of gratitude go to prof. dr. Eugeen Roegiest, president of the Language and Communication department at Ghent University and heart and soul of the MTB program. Without him students like me would not have the opportunity to make the jump from college to a corporate job so easily. Prof. dr. Geert Jacobs is the final person, related to UGent, who I would like to thank – of course next to my fellow MTB students. Prof. Jacobs was the promotor of my Masterpaper, gave feedback to my proposals and helped me find relevant literature for writing the theoretical framework.

Next to the people at Ghent University, I also would like to thank the people at Delhaize Group, who were so good to welcome me into their company for almost three months. First, I would like to thank Mrs. Barbera Hoppenbrouwers, Communications Manager at the Investor Rela- tions & External Communications department at Delhaize Group. She was my supervisor and was always prepared to help me out, give me tips or just hand over some extra work that I was happy to do. Together with her, I set up the media analysis described in this Masterpaper under the supervision of Vice President Investor Relations & External Communications Geert Verellen. Further thanks go to Investor Relations Manager Aurelie Bultynck who explained me the principle of ADR, Senior Vice President Strategy & External Communications Guy Elewaut, every- body else at Delhaize Group and Hans Michiels at Delhaize Belgium for our conversation.

The third group of people I would like to thank are tweeps Danny De Vriendt, Marta Majewska and Shastri - Sasha - Gayatri at PNBR5 (the Porter Novelli Brussels social media lab) and every- body else at Porter Novelli Brussels where I did my second internship. Special thanks to Chris- tian Remon, fellow MTB student, who introduced me to PN when he was doing his own internship there.

Finally, thank you to my parents who agreed to pay for another year of college, thank you to my brother Cédric and thank you to my girlfriend Evelyn who endured my absence during her first and long 3 month summer without re-examinations and for allowing me to spend the few moments of spare time I had on writing this Masterpaper.

III. Table of contents

I. Beschrijving van de stage ...... 4 II. Acknowledgements ...... 7 III. Table of contents...... 8 IV. Preface ...... 9 1. Description of Delhaize Group ...... 10 1.1 History ...... 10 1.2 Company Structure ...... 12 1.3 Vision ...... 16 1.4 Strategy ...... 17 1.5 Corporate Identity ...... 17 1.6 Finances ...... 18 1.7 Competitors...... 20 2. Theoretical Framework ...... 24 2.1 Motivation of the Theoretical Framework ...... 24 2.2 The Network analysis of Evaluative Text Method ...... 25 3. Investor Relations and External Communications in an International Company ...... 33 3.1 Main Case: an Analysis of Delhaize Group and its Main Competitors’ Presence in Financial and Belgian, Dutch and U.S. Regional Media ...... 33 3.2 Second Case: Investigation of Opportunities to use Social Media for Investor Relations Purposes by Delhaize Group ...... 63 3.3 Critical Evaluation of the Internship Projects and their Execution ...... 69 4. Conclusion ...... 71 5. Bibliography ...... 76 6. Attachments ...... 79 6.1 Delhaize Group ...... 79 6.2 Porter Novelli ...... 79

IV. Preface

One of the main pillars of the MTB program were the company visits to Shell, BNP Fortis and Imperial Meat among others. But the most special company visit for me, was at the Delhaize Belgium DC Fresh II when visiting Delhaize Group concerning financial communication. After the tour, I started talking with Mrs. Barbera Hoppenbrouwers about the difference between Delha- ize Group and Delhaize Belgium (not evident for the average Belgian Delhaize shopper). She told me that in fact a lot of newspapers do not even make the distinction and that Delhaize Group. Mrs. Hoppenbrouwers said she liked to install a forward-looking and proactive media plan, to tackle this and other issues. However, she lacked the data and analysis to build her plan. I said the Corporate Branding problem interested me and that is how she proposed me to apply for an internship. Indeed, after turning down a similar project at Barco and an analysis of the Intranet at Bank J. van Breda & C°, I signed the contract at Delhaize Group.

Over the past years, Delhaize Group has worked with the media mostly in a reactive way. Al- though there are some satisfying contacts with Belgian journalists, due to Delhaize Group’s historical market, this is not the case internationally. The Delhaize Group External Communica- tions department has no clear understanding of how Delhaize Group is covered, nor does it have a network of media contacts abroad. The goal of this Masterpaper is to describe an analysis of Delhaize Group’s presence in Belgian and U.S. media, where Delhaize Group has its main markets, and also in Dutch media (because of the current rumors that Dutch Ahold would enter the Belgian retail market). Furthermore, also Financial and Investment Publications, international Newswires and other relevant media like (online) retail magazines were included in the analysis. To be able to compare Delhaize Group with its competitors, the same exercise was made for several main competitors. This analysis should then enable the Investor Relations & External Communications department to set up a proactive media plan which would let them communicate with the media on topics of interest for Delhaize Group’s shareholders, stakeholders and the public at large.

But more than the basis for a media plan the fruit of my work also wants to be a tool, which can be used in Delhaize Group’s ongoing relations with the media. For the analysis, a corpus – or database – was made which includes a list of media and journalists and at the same time, linked to them, a goldmine of information about the topics they write about and the tone of voice they do it in. By consulting the database it is easy to find out, for example, which journalists write a lot on the Delhaize Group management in a positive way and can be granted the opportunity to interview the CEO; or which journalists write negatively about CR and need to be in- vited for an information session by the Corporate Reputation department. The media plan can only be effective when it is used together with this media database. Finally, next to a description of my work at Delhaize Group, I hope this paper can be an interesting case on how the retail sector in general is described by the international and financial media, as well as in social media – a new and booming business about which I got to learn more during my second internship at Porter Novelli Brussels.

Fabrice Hofman July 21, 2010

1. Description of Delhaize Group

Group strength, local expertise

Delhaize Group is a Belgian-based international food retailer with leading positions in its key markets. Delhaize Group is present in six countries on three continents (United States, Belgium, Greece, Romania, Indonesia, Luxemburg) and its stocks are traded on Euronext Brussels (DELB) and the New York Stock Exchange (DEG).

According to the Delhaize Group 2009 Annual Report, at the end of 2009, Delhaize Group’s sales network consisted of 2,732 stores and had 138,000 employees. This means Delhaize Group had 59 more stores and 3.000 employees less, compared to 2008. In 2009, the Group posted €19,938 million in revenues, which is 4.7% more than in 2008. This resulted in a net profit of €514 million or 10.0% more than in 2008.

This description of Delhaize Group is based on the Delhaize Group 2009 Annual Report, the Delhaize Group website www.delhaizegroup.com (April to July 2010) and interviews conducted with the Delhaize Group Senior Vice President Strategy & External Communications Guy Ele- waut, Vice President Investor Relations & External Communications Geert Verellen, Vice Presi- dent Internal Communications Catherine Alexandre, Investor Relations Manager Aurelie Bul- tynck, Communications Manager Barbera Hoppenbrouwers and Corporate Responsibility Com- munications Manager Fatima Martins.

1.1 History

Founding Delhaize

Delhaize Group was founded in 1867 by Jules Delhaize, a professor in commercial engineering, and his brother Edouard and brother-in-law Jules Vieujant in Charleroi. Jules wanted to turn around the food retailing business in Belgium. He created a branch network, charged set prices and saved on succession of intermediaries by opening his own warehouse. The trio chose the lion as their company logo, symbol of strength, and “unity is strength” as their motto; both em- blems of Belgium.

Already in the 1870s the company left Charleroi and moved to Osseghem street 53 in Molen- beek-Saint-Jean near Brussels. With the railroads becoming more and more important for food distribution, the company set up its business in the immediate surroundings of the Gare de l’Ouest station to which it had a direct rail link. The company started to build factories to pro- duce chocolate, biscuits, liquor, coffee and other food products under its own brand name.

Delhaize opened more than 500 stores before the First World War. They all had the same corporate identity: the Delhaize “Le Lion” sign, an attractive window with prices displayed and advertising.

During the Interbellum, discount stores appeared in Belgium causing Delhaize to take the discount products ‘Derby’ into its assortment. By 1939, there were 744 branches, 1,500 affiliate shops and several shops in Belgian Congo.

In 1950 Delhaize “Le Lion” merged with the retail company of Adolphe Delhaize, Jules’ and Edouard’s brother.

An International Company the first European fully self-service supermarket was set up in Brussels by Delhaize in December 1957. The Delhaize management got to know the system during a visit to America.

In 1962 the S.A. Delhaize Frères et Cie “Le Lion” share was floated on the Brussels Stock Ex- change.

In 1974 and 1975, the public authorities wanted to protect small local neighborhood stores by enacting several laws, known as the ‘Padlock law’. By this, they wanted to restrict the further spread of large surface stores. Similar laws passed in all of Europe so Delhaize both needed to expand outside Europe and diversify in Belgium. Through the acquisition of a share in the ‘Food Town Stores’ chain, Delhaize expanded towards the United States. Later, the chain was renamed into ‘Food Lion’ and went from 22 to 226 supermarkets. In Belgium, Delhaize started to set up chemists under the name of ‘DI’. Also, Delhaize launched ‘AD’ in Belgium, an affiliates chain where Delhaize played the role of wholesaler and management adviser. In the late eigh- ties ‘Caddy-Home’, a home delivery service and ‘Tom & Co’, specializing in pet foods and sup- plies, were set up.

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, Delhaize Group turned its attention eastwards and opened its first store in Prague under the name of ‘Delvita’. During the nineties, Delhaize Group acquired a majority share in Greece ‘Alfa-Beta Vassilopoulos’ company. Later, a ‘Kash ‘n Karry’, a Florida chain, was purchased. Also, stakes were acquired in Thai ‘Bel-thai’, in Indonesia ‘Lion Super’ Indo was opened and in Singapore 49% of ‘Shop N Save’ was bought.

In 2000 Delhaize America bought ‘Hannaford Bros., Inc’ in the Northeast of the United States. Delhaize Group ventured into Romania with 15% in ‘Mega Image’. Also, 100% of Food Lion Thailand and Delhaize America was acquired. Since 2001, Delhaize Group is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, via its American Depositary Receipts (ADRs). The group also changed its management structure, enlarged the Board of Directors and created an Office of the CEO. Del- haize Europe, the European Division of Delhaize Group joined EMD, the largest European buying group.

During the first decade of this century, Delhaize Group accumulated positions in some of its operating companies, sold several like ‘Rewe’ and ‘DI’ or acquired new ones in its existing markets like ‘Cash Fresh’. Also, Delhaize launched two discount branches under the name of ‘Bot- tom Dollar Food’ in America and ‘Red Market’ in Romania and Belgium.

1.2 Company Structure

As can be seen from the history of the company, Delhaize evolved from a retail chain called Delhaize “Le Lion” into a holding, overarching several retail chains. In dividing its subsidiaries, Delhaize Group distinguishes between four so-called ‘segments’: U.S., Belgium, Greece, Rest of the World and a fifth ‘corporate’ level.

At the end of 2009, Delhaize Group’s sales network consisted of 2,732 stores of which 341 were owned by the company itself. Delhaize Group also owns 12 warehousing facilities in the U.S., 7 in Belgium, 4 in Greece and 2 in the Rest of the World segment.

1.2.1 Banners

In all four segments, Delhaize Group has companies with a direct Business to Customer approach, called ‘operating companies’. There operating companies are active under different go- to-market ‘banners’.

United States

In the U.S., three ‘operating companies’, which generate 68.3% of Delhaize Group’s revenues, are active in three regions: ‘Sweetbay (Kash n’ Karry Food Stores)’ in Florida under the banner of ‘Sweetbay’, ‘Hannaford Bros.’ in the Northeast under the banner of ‘Hannaford’ and finally ‘Food Lion, LLC’ in the Southeast and mid-Atlantic States under the banners ‘Food Lion’, ‘Bloom’, ‘Bottom Dollar Food’ and ‘Harvey’s’.

In 2009 ‘Food Lion’ consisted of 1,169 stores, operating in eleven Southeastern and Mid- Atlantic states Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West-Virginia. ‘Food Lion’ is the typical neighborhood supermarket. It combines a wide assortment of food products with competitive prices. The ‘Bloom’ chain has 65 stores and focuses on a modern shopping experience with rich and highly qualitative products. The stores offer their customers a lot of information on healthy living and eating. ‘Bottom Dollar Food’ is a discount chain with 28 stores at the end of the first quarter of 2010. It is a low-cost supermarket that combines a limited assortment (ca. 8,000 stock keeping units) with competitive prices, while trying to give a pleasant shopping experience. ‘Harveys’ is a locally embedded chain with 70 stores in rural areas in Georgia and Northern Flor- ida and is very well known by its target group. With 173 supermarkets, ‘Hannaford’ ranks first in the New England markets and is present in five Northeast states. It offers a wide assortment of (fresh) food products at low prices and also offers pharmaceutical services. ‘Hannaford’ is known for licensing the ‘Guiding Stars’ program to schools and other retail chains. ‘Sweetbay’, which is – exceptionally – 3th in its market, has 104 stores in Florida and offers (fresh) food products at competitive prices. Several ‘Sweetbay’ stores offer products adapted to the taste of its mainly Latin-American customers.

Belgium

In Belgium, Delhaize Group is active under the ‘Delhaize’, ‘Red Market’, ‘City Delhaize’ and ‘Tom&Co’ banners. The Delhaize associates’ stores have the ‘AD Delhaize’, ‘Shop’n Go Delhaize’ and ‘Proxy Delhaize’ banners. Also, some ‘Tom&Co’s are ran by associates.

Delhaize Belgium’s strategy is built around five strategic pillars: a wide assortment, customer friendly stores and products, a valuable assortment, efficient business and continuous growth.

Greece

In Greece, Delhaize Group owns 90.9% of ‘Alfa Beta’ which is active under the ‘AB’, ‘City AB’, ‘AB Shop & Go’, ‘AB Food Market’, ‘ENA Cash & Carry’ and ‘Lion Food’ banners.

The ‘Alfa Beta’ banner offers a wide assortment with the focus on fresh and biological food products and local specialties in a modern design store.

Rest of the World

The Rest of the World segment comprises Romania and Indonesia. Delhaize Group is active in Romania via ‘Mega Image’ and ‘Mega Doi’ under the banners ‘Mega Image’ and ‘Red Market’.

In Indonesia, 51.0% owned ‘P.T. Lion Super Indo’ is active under the ‘Super Indo’ banner which was modernized in 2009 and now also offers fresh bakery products and fruit juice.

However, Delhaize Group’s share ownership is more complicated than these 8 operating companies with 22 different banners suggest.

1.2.2 Delhaize Group Share Ownership

United States

All American subsidiaries are grouped under ‘Delhaize US Holding, Inc.’ also called ‘Delhaize America’ which is fully owned by Delhaize Group. ‘Delhaize US Holding, Inc.’ in its turn, owns ‘Detla LLC’ and ‘DZA LLC’ which own several other subsidiaries. The detailed U.S. affiliation is shown in table 1.1.

Table 1.1: Delhaize Group share ownership U.S.

Delhaize Group

… 100% Delhaize US Holding, Inc.

81.9%

100% Detla LLC

Delned Delned (Dutch) 100 60% % Lithia 18.1%...... Prid Spring e s DZA LLC

(U.S.)

100% 100 100% 100% Risk 100% Bottom 100% Food Lion Sweet- % J.H. Manage- Dollar Food

bay DIC Harvey ment Ser- Holding Bros ford -

(Kash n’ Co vices anna

Karry H

Food 100% FL Food Lion Food FL 100%

Stores) 100%

100% 100% 100% 100% Differ-

Harvey B.D.F B.D.F Ma- ent 2

Stamp- South North rion SPE’s 1. ing Co -east -east Real Estate

In- table Cf. 100% DZA Brands DZA 100% vest.

Table 1.2: Hannaford Bros share ownership

Hannaford Bros

100% Hannabro 100% Athenian 100% Guiding 100% 100% Morrills Real Estate De- Stars Licensing Hannaford Corner LLC velopment Company Energy LLC

- 100% Boney Wilson & Sons 100% 100% - 100% Hannaford Trucking MC SS - 100% Progressive Distributors Port- Morrills - 100% Hannaford Licensing land LLC LLC - 100% Martin’s Foods of South Burlington - 100% Victory Distributors

Belgium

In Belgium, Delhaize Group owns 100% of ‘Distri Group 21 (Cash Fresh)’ which owns 100% of ‘Sup VH’, ‘Bugboort’, ‘Katdrink’, ‘Leoburg’, ‘Kommar’, ‘Maascad’, ‘Jobmart’, ‘Molmart’, ‘Huro’ and ‘Wilmart’; and 7.3% of ‘Delimmo’, of which the other 92.7% is directly owned by Dehaize Group.

Furthermore, Delhaize Group owns 100% of ‘PPP’, ‘Smart Food Shopping (ex WTP)’ and ‘Delha- ize Luxembourg’ which in its turn owns 100% of ‘Knauf Center Pommerlach’, ‘Knauf Center Schmëtt’ and ‘Markant-Lux’.

‘Delhome’ is owned for 20.0% by ‘Delimmo’ and 80.0% by Delhaize Group directly. Dutch ‘Delned’, which is fully owned by Delhaize Group, owns 100% of Belgian ‘Redelcover’. In its turn, that company owns 27.8% of ‘Aniserco’; the rest is owned by Delhaize Group directly.

Delhaize Group owns 85.0% of ‘Wambacq & Peeters’, which in its turn owns 80.0% of ‘Win- trucks’. Delhaize Group owns the other 20.0% ‘Wintrucks’.

Greece

Delhaize Group owns 90.9% of ‘Alfa Beta’. In June 2010, Delhaize Group launched a tender offer for the rest of the ‘Alfa Beta’ shares via Dutch Delhaize Group subsidiary ‘Delned’. At first it got rejected, but since July 8, 2010, the Greek Capital Market Commission (CMC) has approved the squeeze out of Alfa Beta’s minority shareholders at €35.7 per share. ‘Alfa Beta’ will be delisted from the Athens Exchange (Just-Food.com, July 15, 2010).

‘Alfa Beta’ runs the Greek chain with the same name and also owns 99.9% of ‘ENA’ and 100% of ‘Holding & Food Trading Co Ltd’, ‘Holding & Food Trading Co Ltd & Co’ and ‘Koryfi’.

Rest of the World

Delhaize Group owns 100% of Romanian ‘Mega Image’ and 86.0% of ‘Mega Doi’. ‘Mega Image’ owns the other 13.2% of ‘Mega Doi’. In Indonesia, Delhaize Group owns 51.0% of ‘P.T. Lion Su- per Indo’.

Corporate

Delhaize Group also owns 100% of corporate subsidiaries ‘Delhaize Griffin’, ‘Delcor’, ‘ATTM’, and 100% of ‘Delned’ via Belgian ‘Delimmo’. ‘Delned’ owns 100% of ‘Delfinance’ and ‘Serdelco’.

1.2.3 Management

Delhaize Group is a Belgian Limited Liability Company, whose shares are enlisted on the NYSE and EuroNext Brussels. Delhaize Group is directed by a Board of Directors, presided by Count Jacobs de Hagen since May 2003. Count Jacobs de Hagen holds a PhD degree in Law and a licen- tiate in Economics from the Catholic University of Leuven and an MA degree in Economics at the University of California (Berkeley, U.S.). Jacobs started his career as an economist with the IMF in Washington, joined the Belgian pharmaceutical UCB Group and is also the chairman of its

Executive Committee. He is also member of the Board at Belgacom, Bekaert, Spadel and SN Brussels Airlines, as well as chairman of various other unions and federations. The Delhaize Group Board of Directors sets out the group’s strategy and is responsible for its management. The Board of Directors is the company’s decision-making body and is entrusted with all powers which are not reserved by law to the General Meeting of shareholders.

Delhaize Group’s Board of Directors has 12 members of which 11 are non-executive directors and one is the executive director or CEO Pierre-Olivier Beckers. Beckers studied applied economic sciences at Louvain-La-Neuve and attained an MBA at Harvard Business School. He has been the CEO of Delhaize Group since January 1, 1999 and CEO of Delhaize America since Sep- tember 2002. He has been working for Delhaize Group since 1983 and is also president of the Belgian Olympic Committee. Next to him and chairman Count Jacobs de Hagen, the other directors are Claire Babrowski, François Cornélis, Count de Pres Roose de Calesberg, Jacques de Vaucleroy, Hugh Farrington, Count Goblet d’Alviella, Robert J. Murray, Jack L. Stahl, Didier Smits, Baron Vansteenkiste.

The daily management of Delhaize Group is in the hands of the CEO and the Executive Commit- tee. It prepares strategy proposals for the Board of Directors, controls the operational activities and analyzes business performance. The Committee consists of CEO Pierre-Olivier Beckers, CFO Stéfan Descheemaeker (previously CFO at ABInbev), Michel Eeckhout (CEO of Delhaize Bel- gium), Ronald C. Hodge, Nicolas Hollanders, Kostas Macheras (CEO of Alfa Beta) and Michael Waller.

The Delhaize Group management is assisted by several corporate departments: Investor Rela- tions & External Communications, Internal Communications, Corporate Responsibility, Finance, HR & Organizational Development, IT, Legal & Compliance and Strategy.

The Investor Relations & External Communications department consists of Vice President Geert Verellen (reporting to the Senior Vice President Strategy & External Communications Guy Ele- waut), an Investor Relations Manager in Europe Aurelie Bultynck, an Investor Relations manager in the U.S. Amy Shue, and a Communications Manager Barbera Hoppenbrouwers.

1.3 Vision

Although Delhaize Group comprises different sorts of retail chains that each have a specific culture and go-to-market strategy, Delhaize Group has an over-arching vision which is built around four pillars: Nutritious, Healthy, Safe and Affordable.

Together, as a Group, Delhaize says it wants to “deliver the best of life”. The Group wants to try to enrich the lives of its customers and associates and the communities it serves in a sustainable way. Delhaize Group wants to do this by offering exclusive products and services but also a wide range of private labels that are nutritious, healthy and safe, at prices that all customers can afford. By offering all people – no matter what their financial capabilities are – the chance to shop in a renowned supermarket, Delhaize Group wants to emancipate the people in the neighborhoods they are present in.

The New Game Plan, launched in 2009, wants to unify all local operating companies with common values that support the shared vision. These values are Determination, Integrity, Courage, Humility and Humour.

1.4 Strategy

In 2009, Delhaize Group launched its New Game Plan, a new strategy to settle acquired strengths and tackle further challenges. The New Game Plan is presented in the 2009 Annual Report. Although we feel its visual presentation lacks clarity and a unified message the strategy’s reasoning can be considered very valuable. Because of a confusing presentation in the An- nual Report, highlighting different aspects in different places, it was only after working on it that the plan became clear to us. In the following paragraph, we will briefly describe the New Game Plan.

The key element in the New Game Plan is “value leadership”, which means that Delhaize Group wants to offer products at low prices without losing top quality. By affirming bonds with existing customers and attracting new ones to its banners, Delhaize Group should be able to increase revenues, leading to profit growth. However, this is only possible when the pull marketing strategy is combined with the implementation of better external services or “maximizing share of wallet”, which is the real driver for higher market share. Mainly, this will be done by implementing low-cost supermarket formats in the newer Delhaize Group markets (Greece, Romania and Indonesia, and by extension the entire Balkans). Also, internally new synergies and shared services need to be set up, allowing for effective cost- cutting. These synergies are only possible with good “enablers”: the Delhaize Group employees, managers ands other stakeholers. For example, after integrating several logistic networks in Belgium, also the U.S. logistic networks will be shared between the different Delhaize America banners. Finally, higher profits – attained through cost effectiveness – should enable Delhaize Group to further lower prices and take over strategic partners. Both should attract more customers to the Delhaize Group banners, closing the virtuous circle.

A final important pillar in the Delhaize Group strategy is Corporate Responsibility, by Delhaize Group divided into “Product, People and Planet”. CR initiatives will focus mainly on food safety, health and wellness, associate development, energy preservation and making sure Delhaize Group products are made using responsible resources.

1.5 Corporate Identity

Delhaize Group’s corporate identity is dominated by its historical emblem: the lion. Together with the company’s historical motto “Strength Through Unity”, the Delhaize brothers referred to the typical Belgian symbols. Today, the company motto was changed to ‘”Group Strength, Local Expertise” as the company became an international holding embracing retail companies in six countries on three continents. The idea is that the Group is a strong service provider and an

17 exchange platform for knowledge and ideas for the operating companies. Marketing and product management are done separately by the banners’ management teams to optimally cover local customer needs. This way, it is wrong to see Delhaize Group as a Business-to-Consumer company.

Nevertheless, because of its – partly – shared name, journalists covering ‘Delhaize Group’ simp- ly as ‘Delhaize’, and identical logo, Delhaize Group is often mistaken for one of its operating companies: ‘Delhaize Belgium’. A lot of Belgian Delhaize customers do not even know ‘Delhaize Belgium’ is only responsible for 23.1% of Delhaize Group’s revenue. In the U.S., the situation is the other way around. U.S. customers are in nothing confronted with the Delhaize name and often do not realize they are shopping at a Belgian-owned company. A Florida ‘Sweetbay’ customer would not even realize Northeastern ‘Hannaford’ belongs to the same group. Although discount store ‘Bottom Dollar Food’ is located in the same region as fancy ‘Bloom’, they are in no way recognizable as belonging to the same holding. Despite the Delhaize America institution, embracing all U.S. activities, the different U.S. banners’ management teams feel very independent from each other and the Brussels head office. Delhaize Group wants to change this by con- verging several American management teams and logistic systems.

The absence of the Delhaize name makes it difficult for Delhaize Group to get notoriety in the U.S., for example to profile itself as a credible acquirer of other retail companies. Several newspapers write about ‘Food Lion’ instead of Delhaize Group or Delhaize America. Also, promotion of the Delhaize Group share with U.S. investors is not very evident.

Since 2008 Delhaize Group works together with Liège-based Chris Communications to stream- line the group’s corporate identity. Since then, all documents (except for the website) passing through the hands of the Investor Relations & External Communications department have the same look and feel with distinct colors and visuals. From September 2010, also the Delhaize Group website will be completely remodeled, matching all other External Communication documents. Organically, also other Delhaize Group departments started to use the same or very similar brand guidelines.

1.6 Finances

This overview of Delhaize Group’s finances is based on the Delhaize Group 2008 and 2009 An- nual Reports and on interviews with the Delhaize Group Investor Relations Manager Aurelie Bultynck.

Table 1.3: Consolidated revenues and profit (in mil- 2006 2007 2008 2009 lion euro) Revenu 19,215 18,943 19,024 19,938 Profit 947 937 904 942 Profit growth (%) -1.0% -3.5% 4.2% Profit per stores (in hundred thousand euro) 350 368.2 338.2 344.5 Profit per stores growth % 5% -8% 1.8%

The past four years, Delhaize Group’s consolidated revenues were slightly below €20 billion. In 2007 and 2008, there was a negative revenue growth, compared to the previous year. However, in 2008 the Group managed to yield a higher profit and in 2009 both revenue and profit grew, compared to the previous year. The 2009 Delhaize Group revenue was €19,938 million; a rise of 1.2% at unchanged exchange rates and 4.8% at current exchange rates.

Since 2006, the Delhaize Group profit is slightly under €1 billion. It has been falling since 2006 but picked up again in 2009 with a profit growth of 4.2%.

With a company margin of 4.7% in 2009, Delhaize Group is among the best in its business. However, the margin was slightly lower than in 2008 (4.8%)

Table 1.4: Revenues per segment (in million 2006 2007 2008 2009 euro) U.S. (in million U.S. dollar) 17,293 18,172 19,239 18,994 Belgium 4,275 4,346 4,407 4,616 Greece 1,030 1,173 1,335 1,471 Rest of the World 137 165 201 233

While in 2009 Delhaize America had a negative growth, the U.S. still remains Delhaize Group’s biggest segment by far with 68.3% of its revenues generated there. Nevertheless, in 2008, the U.S. was responsible for 68.8% of the Group’s revenues. This is also due to the fact that in the U.S. 2008 had 53 weeks. Revenue growth in 2009 was mainly due to Delhaize Belgium (4.7%), which had a very good year and is responsible for 23.1% of the Group’s revenues. Although Delhaize Group does not acknowledges this officially, this Belgian success was mainly thanks to the problems at Carrefour Belgium and thus not fully structural. Also, Belgians share in the Group’s consolidated revenue fell 0.1%. Greece’s share in the Group’s consolidated revenue rose 0.4% to 7.4%. The Rest of the World jumped from 1% in 2008 to 1.2% in 2009 of the Group’s consolidated revenue and is therefore once again the smallest, but strongest growing Delhaize Group segment with a rise of 15.9%.

Table 1.5: Information on the Delhaize Group share (DELB; 2006 2007 2008 2009 Euronext Brussels; in euro) Profit per share 3.7 4.2 4.7 5.1 Netto dividend 0.99 1.08 1.11 1.2 Price (December 31) 63.2 60.2 44.2 53.6

In 2009, the number of Delhaize Group shares, including treasury shares, rose with 287,342 to 101 million. Delhaize Group owned 955,586 of its own shares in 2009 and continued to buy shares in 2010; a sign of confidence. The profit per share jumped with 11.9% to €4.7 in 2008 and with 8.5% to €5.1 in 2009. Thanks to Delhaize Group’s dividend policy, the dividend has risen every year since 2006. Because of the 2008-2009 crisis on the stock markets, the Delhaize Group share plunged from €60.2 on December 31, 2007 to €44.2 on December 31, 2008 – a drop of 26.6%. From Decem- ber 31, 2008 until December 31, 2009 the share rose 21.3% to €53.6 which is better than any of its competitors analyzed in chapter 3. Currently (July 9, 2010) the share price has risen to €60.3.

Table 1.6: Balance (in millon euro) 2006 2007 2008 2009 Total assets 9,295 8,822 9,700 9,748 Total equity 3,561 3,676 4,195 4,409 Net debt 2,635 2,244 2,402 2,063

Delhaize Group’s 2009 assets amounted €9,748 million a rise of 0.5% compared to 2008 which can be explained by acquisitions (and the recognition of goodwill), and a higher cash balance at the end of the year. In 2008, total assets were up 9.9% compared to 2007, which was a result of big property acquisitions. In 2009, total equity was up 5.1%, compared to the year before, at €4,409 million; despite higher foreign exchange losses. This was the result of an organic higher net profit, as was the case in 2008. At the end of 2009, Delhaize Group’s net debt was down €339 million to €2,100 million after it had risen in 2008 because of exchange differences between the euro and the U.S. dollar. The fall was the result of a strong free cash flow generation. According to the Delhaize Group 2009 Financial Report, net debt is defined as “the non-current financial liabilities, plus current financial liabilities and derivative financial liabilities, minus derivative financial assets, investments in securities, and cash and cash equivalents”. As in 2007 (61.0%) and 2008 (57.3%), the net debt versus total equity margin kept getting smaller to 46.8%. In 2009, Delhaize Group issued bonds worth $300 million to further amortize debts.

1.7 Competitors

The retail sector suffers from an aggressive competition, mainly based on price leadership. Al- though Delhaize Group’s main operating companies’ strategies are not focused on price leadership but on value leadership (offering the best value for money, instead of offering the cheapest products), they are in the first or second place in each of their markets revenue rankings.

The selection of competitors presented here is based on a list composed by the Delhaize Group Vice President Investor Relations & External Communications Geert Verellen. Information on these competitors was derived from their annual reports, their websites, the Delhaize Group Factbook 2009 and interviews with VP IR&EC Geert Verellen, IR manager Aurelie Bultynck and Communications Manager Barbera Hoppenbrouwers.

1.7.1 United States

According to Supermarket News’ SN’s Top 75 Retailers for 2009 (website, July 7, 2010), Delhaize America is currently ranked eighth in the list of largest food retailers and wholesalers in the North-American market, which includes both the United States and Canada. Wal-Mart leads the top 9, followed by Kroger Co., Costco Wholesale Corp., Supervalu, Safeway, Publix Supermar- kets and Ahold. Because these data are based on the North-American region, they give a diffuse image of the situation in the separate U.S. markets. Only the U.S. competitors important for Delhaize Group are mentioned here.

Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is the world’s largest department store chain with 2009 sales of $405 billion (Deloitte, Global powers of retailing 2010, 2010; Wal-Mart 2009 Annual Report). Despite the fact that the company is present in 15 countries1, it is only a direct competitor of Delhaize Group in the U.S. (Wal-Mart website, July 7, 2010).

In the U.S., Wal-Mart has several divisions: ‘Wal-Mart Discount Stores’, ‘Wal-Mart Supercen- ters’, ‘Wal-Mart Neighborhood Markets’ and ‘Marketside Stores’ among others. ‘Wal-Mart Dis- count Stores’ are discount department stores that offer general merchandise. ‘Wal-Mart Super- centers’ are hypermarkets (some opened 24 hours per day) that combine food retail and general merchandising. ‘Wal-Mart Neighborhood Markets’ are more intimate supermarkets that offer groceries, pharmaceuticals and other general merchandise. ‘Marketside Stores’ was opened in 2008 as small grocery stores specializing in fresh meals. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. also owns and operates the American warehouse club ‘Sam’s Club’, which requires membership.

Kroger

Only present in the U.S., Kroger Co. is the sixth food retail store chain in the world with 2009 sales of $76 billion (Deloitte, Global powers of retailing 2010, 2010; Kroger Co. 2009 Annual Report). Kroger operates its supermarkets under sixteen different banners. It has two so-called ‘price-impact warehouse stores’, called ‘Food4Less’ and ‘Foods Co.’, a multi-department store ‘FredMeyer’, four brands of hypermarket ‘Marketplace stores’ and six chains of convenience stores. Kroger Co. also has four jewelry store chains and offers financial services and runs a chain of clinics (Kroger. Co website, July 7, 2010).

Costco

Costco is a general retailer and membership warehouse club that ranks seventh internationally with 2009 sales of $71,422 million (Deloitte, Global powers of retailing 2010, 2010; Costco Wholesale 2009 Annual Report). Costco is active in several markets, including electrical ap- pliances, jewelry and food (Costco website, July 11, 2010).

Safeway

Safeway, Inc. has a 2009 sales of $40,900 million and is North America’s third largest supermarket chain, according to the Safeway 2008 Factbook (2008). Safeway is active in both food retailing and the pharmacy industry, and operates under several banners other than the Safeway name.

Supervalu

SuperValu, Inc. is a U.S. retail chain with a 2008 sales of $40,597 million (Supervalu, Inc. 2010 Annual Report). According to the company website (July 10, 2010), the company positions itself as a neighborhood grocery store, and in that way aims for the same target audience as the ‘Food Lion LLC’ banners. Supervalu also has discount stores and supply chain services.

1 Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Japan, Mex- ico, Nicaragua, United Kingdom

Ahold

Royal Ahold N.V. is an Amsterdam-based group that manages supermarkets in the U.S., as well as Europe. It had a 2009 sales of €27,930 million. Ahold is a competitor in the U.S. via ‘Stop & Shop’, ‘Giant of Landover’, ‘Giant of Carlisle’ and ‘Peapod’. The company also announced that it will venture into Belgium in 2010 or 2011 with its ‘Albert Heijn’ chain (De Smedt, S., De Tijd, June 4, 2010).

Harris Teeter

Harris Teeter is a chain of supermarkets, based in North Carolina and is owned by the Ruddick Corporation (NYSE: RDK). With 2009 sales of $3,827,000,000, Harris Teeter is only a local player (Ruddick Corporation 2009 Annual Report). Nevertheless, with stores in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Colum- bia (Ruddick Corporation website, July 11, 2010) it is a major competitor of Delhaize America.

1.7.2 Belgium

In its historical market, ‘Delhaize Belgium’ and its affiliates have to compete with four main competitors: ‘Carrefour’, ‘Colruyt’, ‘Aldi’ and ‘Lidl’. Dutch Ahold announced it will establish an ‘Albert Heijn’ in Belgium from 2010 or 2011 on.

In 2009 ‘Delhaize Belgium’, ‘Colruyt’ and ‘Carrefour’ each had about 25% of the Belgian market share, leaving the other quarter for ‘Aldi’, ‘Lidl’ and other small grocery stores (Mussche, E., Het Nieuwsblad, September 16, 2009).

Carrefour

Carrefour is a French international hypermarket chain, listed on EuroNext Paris (CA). With a 2009 sales of €85,960 million it is the world’s second largest retailer (Deloitte, Global powers of retailing 2010, 2010). Present in Europe, Asia, North-Africa and South-America, Carrefour is Delhaize Group competitor only in Belgium and Indonesia.

In Belgium, Carrefour operates since 2000 when it took over the Belgian ‘GB’ chain. Carrefour runs the banners ‘Carrefour Hyper’, ‘GB Carrefour’ and ‘Carrefour Express’. Although Carrefour wants to start remodeling the ‘GB Carrefours’ into ‘Carrefour Market’, in 2009 and 2010 it was announced that the Belgian Carrefour business is under stress (De Tijd, October 16, 2010). Claims that Carrefour is to close down several of its stores resulted in long and hard union actions in 2010 (Belga, May 22, 2010). Currently, Carrefour is in the process of closing, remodeling and selling several of its stores. Delhaize Group has been called one of the possible buyers of ‘Carrefour Belgium’ (Keszei, N. & Evenepoel, K., De Tijd, May 26, 2010; MB, De Gazet van Ant- werpen, May 27, 2010). Another company, Mestdagh, running the ‘Champion’ stores was said to take over some of the Belgian Carrefour stores. In July 2010 it was announced that several of the ‘Champion’ stores would be renamed ‘Carrefour Market’ by 2013 (Luysterman, P., De Tijd, July 3, 2010).

Colruyt Group

Belgian family company Colruyt Group is listed on EuroNext Brussels (COLR) and had a 2009 sales of €6,310 million (Colruyt Group 2009 Annual Report). With stores in Belgium, Luxem- bourg and France, Colruyt Group is a Delhaize Group competitor in Belgium and Luxembourg.

Colruyt Group is best known for its discount supermarket chain ‘Colruyt’ that is characterized by its consistent strategy of offering the lowest prices; every day, product prices are compared with identical products or products of a similar quality. Colruyt-prices are adjusted accordingly on a local basis. (Colruyt website, July 11, 2010)

Colruyt also owns or franchises the retail chains ‘Dreamland Belgium’ and ‘Dreamland France’, ‘DreamBaby’, ‘Spar Retail’, ‘Bio-Planet’, ‘Okay’, petrol station ‘DATS24’, ‘Coccinelle’, ‘Coccimar- ket’, ‘Panier Sympa’, ‘Cody Cash’ and ‘Pro à Pro’ (Colruyt Group website, July 11, 2010).

Aldi

Aldi is a German international supermarket company with a 2009 sales of $58 billion and ranks 8th according to Deloitte (Global powers of retailing 2010, 2010). In Belgium, Aldi has a market share of 11% (Mussche, E., Het Nieuwsblad, September 16, 2009).

Lidl

Lidl is a German international hard-discount store, owned by holding company Schwarz, which also owns other stores (website, July 11, 2010). Lidl has a share of 5% of the Belgian market (Mussche, E., Het Nieuwsblad, September 16, 2009).

1.7.3 Indonesia

In Indonesia, Delhaize Group’s ‘Super Indo’ suffers competition from French Carrefour and the Indonesian Matahari Group and Hero Group.

As a reaction to the success of foreign retailers, the Matahari Group has opened several hypermarket outlets under the banner ‘Hypermart’. In total, Matahari manages 80 outlets throughout the country. ‘Hero Supermarket’ is the largest retailing chain in Indonesia, with 391 stores (Asean Affairs, July 28, 2008, website, July 11, 2010).

2. Theoretical Framework

2.1 Motivation of the Theoretical Framework

Reputation is very important for companies. Often, reputation is a main factor in investment decisions, career decisions and consumer choices (Dowling, 1986). In their 1990 paper, Fom- brun and Shanley claim that the reputation of a firm can have a significant effect on how products, jobs, strategies and prospects are seen by the public and how they are compared to their competitors. Favorable reputations can even generate extra returns and block competing companies from achieving their goals (Caves & Porter, 1977; Wilson, 1985). Also, quite importantly for the Investor Relations department, it was indicated that a good company reputation can improve access to capital markets and can attract investors (Milgrom & Roberts, 1986; Beatty & Ritter, 1986).

From this, we can see that it is extremely important to study corporate reputation. Since a big deal of corporate reputation is built in the media, it is not only important to constantly monitor one’s media presence, but also to use media analyses to shape company strategies and to con- struct media plans. As Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis (2006) indicated, contrary to political communication sciences, business communication does not enjoy a long tradition of studies concerning media coverage and its effects. Nevertheless, there are some rare empirical studies that focus on economic news and its influence on the business in question (Van Atteveldt, Kleinnijenhuis et al, 2008a; Meijer & Kleinnijenhuis, 2006; Caroll & McCombs, 2003; Fombrun & Stanley, 1990; Wartick, 1992). To examine a business’s elaborated media profile and a description of the relationships with its stakeholders some of these researchers make use of the Network analysis of Evaluative Text method (NET). The NET method relies on coding a text’s sentences by parsing them into assertions that connect meaning objects (Kleinnijenhuis and De Ridder, 1997; De Ridder, 1994) and express their syntactic relation via a graph. The intricate procedure of how sentences are coded and how these codes are used to determine the tone of voice of a text is described in 2.2.1 Introduction to the NET Methodology.

The NET method wants to allow to create an expanded media profile by analyzing the network in which different elements of content are related to each other. That way, the NET method is able to render a description of the relationships between two objects which can be political parties and their stakeholders, or, in our case, a company and its stakeholders. The present study (an analysis of Delhaize Group and its competitors’ media presence) however, does not dig as deep as the cited works. In the short amount of time in which our study was executed, we were not able to code linguistic content into syntactic assertions, allowing a Network analysis of Evaluative Text. However, we did focus on several ‘issues’ and the tone of voice. Also, the amount of coverage on specific content was taken into account. The way in which tone of voice was determined in our study is described extensively in 3.1.3 Methodology. The study’s methodology and philosophy was mainly based on the Delhaize Group management’s practical whish- es. For a concrete description of the study’s methodology, cf. 3.1.3 Methodology. Nevertheless, it would be useful to give a short description of the NET methodology and a corporate reputation study using the method.

2.2 The Network analysis of Evaluative Text Method

2.2.1 Introduction to the NET Methodology

The Network analysis of Evaluative Text Method (NET), developed by Van Cuilenburg et al. (1986) is extensively described by Kleinnijenhuis and De Ridder (1997) and De Ridder (1994). And used mostly for analyzing political coverage (Kleinnijenhuis et al., 1995, 2007a, b) but also for corporate news and reputation (Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis, 2006). In this paragraph, we give a description of its basic methodology and use, also outlined in Van Atteveldt (2008b).

The NET method divides text into propositions called Nuclear Statements, consisting of a subject, an object and a predicate connecting the subject and object by association or dissociation. In a sentence like “Les marchés confirment leurs gains”2 (The markets confirm their gains), “Les marches” is in association with “leurs gains”, while in a sentence like “Bank Degroof heeft het advies voor Delhaize verlaagd”3 (Bank Degroof has lowered the advice for Delhaize), “Bank De- groof” is in dissociation with “Delhaize”. The NET method aims at quantifying the quality of the connection, ranging from -1 (maximal dissociation) to +1 (maximal association).

Furthermore, NET distinguishes between different kinds of connections, related to affinity, action, causation, and equivalence. Affinity refers to what the actor would like to do or to see happen. While action refers to whether or not the actor does something voluntarily, causation refers to an actor causing something to happen without conscious effort. Equivalence refers to the fact that two objects are similar or equal.

For determining the subject and object of Nuclear Statement the NET method makes use of an ontology, fully described in Van Atteveldt (2008b, 8.4). In short, an ontology is a hierarchy that describes “Bank Degroof” as an investment institution, publishing advice on whether or not to buy shares. In that way “Bank Degroof” is an active player in the field of investing, or an Actor. However, in “Knikkeractie Delhaize is onwettig”4 (Marble action Delhaize is illegal) “Knikkeractie Delhaize” is a marketing issue, called Issue in the NET terminology. In a first step, “onwettig” is not given any evaluation, but later on, the NET method will call on the positive Ideal and will code “Knikkeractie Delhaize is onwettig” as a Nuclear Statement dissociating “Knikkeractie Del- haize” from the ideal by calling it “onwettig”. Van Atteveldt (2008b) describes yet another special object: Reality. A sentence like “Retailers took a beating” 5 does not contain a subject. We do not know who caused retailers to take a beating. If there is no subject in a sentence when an actor proclaims success (+) or failure (-) or when variables increase (+) or decrease (-), reality is coded as the subject.

Because newspaper articles often contain literal or paraphrased quotes from actors, all Nuclear Statements contain one or more (nested) sources. By doing this, an additional network is created, within the network of the primary source. This way, the world of the quoted source is

2 L'Echo, March 17, 2010 3 Het Laatste Nieuws, March 25, 2010 4 De Gazet van Antwerpen, December 9, 2009 5 The Wall Street Journal, May 26, 2009

25 represented according to the newspaper source. When a newspaper refers to another newspaper quoting an actor, a double nesting is applied.

In the fictional sentence – based on Van Atteveldt’s (2008b) example – “The Delhaize Group shareholders voted against the dividend of €1.10 because they fear the resulting lack of reserves will endanger the company’s viability” we see an action, (the shareholders voting) and two causal statements made by a source (according to the Delhaize Group shareholders, the dividend will draw from the reserves endangering the financial strength of the company). How- ever, the NET method is limited to dyadic predicates, which are relations between single subjects and objects. Therefore, it does not allow predicates acting as subjects or objects of other predicates. This way, not all information contained in texts can be represented. In the fictional “The board rejected the proposal made by the CEO” we see a negative relation between “The board” and the relation representing the proposal by the CEO. According to the NET method, this relation cannot be a subject or object and therefore the sentence would mean that the board rejected the CEO, which is not true as only his proposal was rejected. Van Atteveldt (2008b) indicates that these limitations are the consequence of NET’s graph representation. Relations within relations or relations between more than two objects would render too difficult to parse graphs. Nevertheless, NET graphs are being used because they are easy to under- stand mathematically and because many other analyses can be applied to the graphs.

For the sake of providing a good example, the following is taken literally from Van Atteveldt (2008b). Table 2.1 is a NET coded article about the debate between Wouter Bos (PvdA, Social Democrats) and Jan Peter Balkenende (CDA, Christian Democrats), the champions for the premiership during the Dutch 2006 parliamentary elections. The headline “Hard Confrontation Right and Left” is coded as a reciprocal (hence the ‘<->’) negative (-1) relation between both politicians, metaphorically denoted by ‘Right’ and ‘Left’. The first sentence of the text, however, is more complicated. The main message is the fight between Balkenende and Bos about Poverty and Health Care. In this case, we have two relations which are both coded as reciprocal and negative (-.7) and which have a specific Angle: Poverty in the first case and Health Care in the second. In the third sentence, Balkenende claims that Bos is frightening people. This is coded as Bos acting against (-.7) the Dutch citizens with Balkenende as the Source of this news. Sentence 4 again expresses two relations: first, Bos thinking that investing more money would be good for Health Care (+.5); and second Bos wanting to invest more money in Health Care, coded as an affinitive positive (+1) relation between Bos and Health Care Investments. Obviously, all statements also had the articles source, De Telegraaf, as their implicit primary source.

Table 2.1. An example of an article with NET coding

Hard Confrontation Right and Left

The champions of the premiership, Labour leader Bos and Christian Democrat leader Balke- nende, attacked each other over poverty and health care. Bos is needlessly scaring people, according to the prime minister *…+ Bos: “Good health care costs money, so we should invest more.”

Source Subject Relation Object Angle

1 Left < -1 affinitive > Right

2 Bos < -.7 affinitive > Balkenende Poverty

2 Bos < -.7 affinitive > Balkenende Health Care

3 Balkenende: Bos -.7 acting > Citizens

4 Bos: Invest Health +.5 causative Healthcare

4 Bos +1 affinitive Invest Health

Source: De Telegraaf, 22 November 2006. N.B. : sentence 3 means that according to Balke- nende, Bos is acting against the good of the citizens

The coding procedure yields a set of networks of actors and issues for each article and nested source which can be used for answering a research question. However, to answer this research question, usually patterns of relations between abstract categories in collections of articles are used; instead of specific relations between concrete objects in a single article. Analysis is usually based on a collection of newspapers in a certain period, for example a week; called a “unit of analysis” by Van Atteveldt (2008b). In our case, we would have one unit for newspaper articles on Delhaize Group and additional units per competitor (for more information, cf. 3.1.3 Metho- dology) between April 2009 and May 2010. Van Atteveldt (2008b) describes a way to combine all the networks from individual texts into one network for the specific unit in question. This should allow researchers to deduce findings from their analysis, a procedure which he calls “enriching the network”. Basically, two steps are necessary to aggregate the different networks. First, all actors present in the texts are combined into one generic actor. To give a (fictional) example, all Delhaize Group subsidiary actors like ‘Food Lion’, ‘Hannaford’, ‘AD Delhaize’, ‘Red Market’ and ‘Super Indo’ would be aggregated into one actor: ‘Delhaize Group’. The same would go for all issues. In our case quarterly results, yearly results, news on market share, and news on dividends, for example, would all be grouped together under ‘Results’.

Instead of a further in-depth description of the NET methodology, we will now present a study by Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis (2006) in which the NET method is used.

2.2.2 News and Corporate Reputation in the Netherlands

In their study, Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis (2006) want to investigate the effects of economic and business news on corporate reputation as perceived by the stakeholders of the companies in question.

To do this, first, they make a distinction between two types of business news: success & failure news and support & criticism news. Success & failure news refers to news attributing success or loss to a company. In “Retailers took a beating”, factual information (failure) about “Retailers” is provided. If, on the other hand, a journalist describes a company receiving praise or criticism by another company, the government or another actor, as in “Bank Degroof has lowered the advice for Delhaize”, this type of news is called support & criticism news.

The Effects of Success & Failure News on Corporate Reputation

Logically, and hypothesized by many authors, positive media coverage on a company will improve that company’s corporate reputation (Caroll & McCombs, 2003; Fombrun & Shanley, 1990; Wartick, 1992). Deephouse (2000) even showed that it can lead to higher relative returns on average assets. Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis (2006) reason that this must mean:

that in the case of success & failure news, the reputation of an organization will improve if success is attributed to the organization in the media (people want to support the winner). If the organization is in the news through failure, its reputation will deteriorate.

Already in 1944, this was called bandwagon effect by Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet, who argued that managers of presidential voting campaigns were using bandwagon effect by suggesting in the media that everyone was supporting their candidate. Success & failure news could also be called ‘horse race news’, since its focus is on winning or losing. In fact, Fombrum (1996) described several horse races and related them to business. When a horse, or a company or product for that matter wins a contest or gets top rated in a ranking, their reputation is confirmed which designates them as a winner. Subsequently, they get more media coverage, which increases their visibility and indirectly, their ratings by stakeholders. To sum up, we can say that success & failure news with a positive tone of voice can improve a company’s reputation.

In politics, we can see that negative news can have a paradoxically positive effect as well, called the underdog effect. Voters seeing that a party is losing in the opinion polls will vote for that company out of compassion or protest. Kleinnijenhuis and De Ridder (1997), for example, found such an underdog effect in the 1994 Dutch parliament election campaign where Christian Dem- ocrats (CDA) were down in opinion polls but still managed to get more votes than was expected. Allegedly, this was because “politically sophisticated voters” decided to vote for CDA. However, Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis (2006) believe that the underdog effect will not play a role in success & failure coverage on corporations. They hypothesize that “the tone *of voice+ of success & failure news is positively related to reputation.

The Effects of Support & Criticism News on Corporate Reputation

We could assume, as we first did for success & failure news, that when a company is supported in the news by other actors its corporate reputation will improve and that it will deteriorate when a company is criticized by another actor. It is important to stress that in this provisional hypothesis we do not regard who the actor (source) is. However, Meijer and Kleinneijnhuis (2006) refer to Osgood and Tannenbaum’s principle of congruity (1955) which says that the source of support and criticism is important for determining any effect on reputation.

Several studies on political communication have found a reversed effect on reputation by support & criticism news with a negative tone of voice (Kleinnijenhuis & De Ridder, 1997; Kleinni- jenhuis et al, 2003; Shah, Watts, Domke & Fan, 2002). Political parties or the president were in fact benefitting from criticism in the news directed at them. Shah et al. (2002) investigated the effects of the criticism directed at president Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky affair. In- stead of harming his job approval ratings because of Republican attacks and consequent negative media coverage, his reputation improved. On the other hand, news coverage that criticized the Republicans for attacking Clinton had a positive influence on Clinton’s job approval ratings, which led Shah et al. (2002) to conclude that the two frames were reinforcing each other.

Following this reasoning, Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis (2006) formulate a second hypothesis, namely that “*t+he tone *of voice+ of support & criticism news will be positively related to reputation if impartial actors criticize the organization”. However, as we saw in the Monica Lewinsky affair case “the tone *of voice+ of support & criticism news will by negatively related to reputation if its competitors criticize the organization” (Meijer & Kleinnijenhuis, 2006).

Methodology of the Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis Study (2006)

For their study, Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis (2006) used three types of data: public opinion (reputation) data, advertising data and media data. Public opinion data was gathered by Dutch market research agency TNS NIPO among their panel of respondents6. With subscriptions to daily newspapers mounting up to 85% of the total newspaper circulation and newsstand and books- tore sales relatively small, the Netherlands is a suitable country for testing the effects of media coverage in a real-life situation because that way a respondent’s subscription reflects the print news consumption of the respondent, reducing the error margins. The advertising data were obtained from Nielsen Media Research and were measured in advertising expenditures per focal company per medium between July 26, 1998 and July 22, 20007.

Media data consisted of assertions, made via the NET method, on the basis of media coverage on a selection of companies in different industries and two sectors. This was done to have a wide variety of cases with the aim of generalizing the study’s findings. Close to our own topic of research, Albert Heijn and Super de Boer, two Dutch supermarkets represent the Dutch retail industry. Albert Heijn is a subsidiary of Dutch Ahold (for more information, cf. 1.7.1 Competitors in the U.S.) and is market leader in the Netherlands. British BP and Dutch-British Shell, two pro- viders of fuel for transportation, represent the energy business. The Dutch Railways and the

6 Panel data were collected in the summer of 1999 and the summer of 2000. 430 respondents, reading the selected media, took part in 1999 and 2000; 549 took part in 2000; 127 took part in 1999. 7 This period coincided with the public opinion poll data

Dutch airport Schiphol represent the transport industry. The Dutch Railways has a monopoly in the Netherlands, transporting more than 1 million passengers per day. Schiphol is the Nether- land’s biggest airport and wants to be one of Europe’s main airports. Also, the Dutch police, employing 52,0008 out of a population of 16 million and the agricultural sector in the Nether- lands, employing approximately 258,000 people9, were investigated.

For attaining the media data, the five largest Dutch newspapers10 were screened, again, between July 26, 1998 and July 22, 2000. All articles were weighed according to their position (the page number) and their magnitude. Additionally, news broadcasts by the public broadcasting company NOS and the commercial channel RTL 4 were analyzed. These broadcasts were weighed according to viewer ratings. For all companies and sectors, a total amount of 5,531 newspaper articles and 1,275 television news items were analyzed, resulting in 9,344 assertions (for a description of how text is parsed into assertions, cf. 2.2.1 Introduction to the NET methodology).

Using the NET method, Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis (2006) adapted the coding system to fit their own purposes. First, they only analyzed sentences with success & failure news and support & criticism news content. Second, they divided tone of voice into 4 gradations: -1, -0.5, 0, 0.5, 1; using -0.5 and 0.5 when refinements such as “maybe”, “slightly”, “perhaps” were made to the text. As the unit of measurement, the combination of subject and object was taken; and as the context unit the article as a whole was used. To make sure coding was done in a reliable way, there was 10% overlap between the different coders work11.

In table 2.2, taken from Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis (2006), a description is given of how the different types of news and the control variables are measured. The tone of voice of both success & failure news and support & criticism news are operationalized by two separate variables: the direction – measured by the average of the NET method’s gradation points; and the favorability – measured by the sum of the NET method’s gradation points. Always, the focal companies and sectors are put on the receiving end of both types of news; this means they are considered as being in the object position of the assertion.

8 In 2002 9 In 2003 10 De Telegraaf, Algemeen Dagblad, NRC Handelsblad, Trouw, de Volkskrant 11 The reliability of the subject-object combination was just satisfactory; the reliability of the tone of voice was high

Table 2.2: Measures of the media variables and advertising intensity

Variable name Measures

Tone of voice of success & failure news

- Direction of success & failure news The average tone [of voice] of success & failure news with the focal company or sector in the object position - Favorability of success & failure news The summed tone [of voice] of success & failure news with the focal company or sector in the object position

Tone of voice of support & criticism news

- Direction of support & criticism news The average tone [of voice] of support & criticism news with the focal company or sector in the object position - Favorability of success & criticism The summed tone [of voice] of support & criticism news news with the focal company or sector in the object position

Control variables

- Advertising intensity The cumulated advertising expenditures by the focal company in the five largest Dutch national newspapers and on television (RTL 4 and public broadcaster NOS)

- Amount of television coverage The cumulated number of times the focal company or sector was mentioned in RTL 4 news and NOS news

- Amount of print coverage The cumulated number of times the focal organization or sector was mentioned in the headlines of the five largest Dutch national newspapers

Findings of the Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis Study (2006)

Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis (2006) start their findings with a description of how the focal companies and sectors are described in both success & failure news and support & criticism news.

From the 6 focal companies and 2 sectors, the agricultural was clearly attributed the most failure (-.48). After the agricultural sector, energy company Shell was attributed the most failure. Competitor BP occupied a middle position. The National Railways and Schiphol were in the middle group as well. The retail companies Albert Heijn and Super de Boer did almost not re- ceive any success & failure news. The police received the most success coverage.

Albert Heijn received a large amount of criticism (-.41), due to its quarrel with diet guru Mon- tignac. The National Railways, Shell and the police received a lot of criticism as well. Schiphol and the agricultural sector were in the middle group. Albert Heijn competitor Super de Boer received almost no support & criticism news.

According to the TNS NIPO research, Albert Heijn had the best reputation in 2009 and 2000; followed by Schiphol in both years. The National Railways had the worst reputation in both years. The police’s reputation was second-worst in 1999.

Testing the hypotheses, all variables in table 2.2 were analyzed for significant effects. The first hypothesis stated that more positive coverage would improve reputation and vice versa; this would mean that the higher or respectively lower the direction and favorability success & failure news, the better or worse a company or sector’s reputation would be. For print news, there were significant effects of success & failure news for Super de Boer, Schi- phol and the agricultural sector. For example, Super de Boer’s reputation worsened when there was more failure news coverage on it (concerning falling market share). Newspaper readers were more critical for the success of Schiphol; but this was not the case for television viewers. A bandwagon effect was found for Shell, whose reputation improved when it got more success news. Concerning the agricultural sector, newspaper readers, as well as television viewers, were positive on the reputation of the sector when it endured failure news. This suggests an underdog effect. The second hypothesis stated that an organization’s reputation will improve if its opponents criticize it. Indeed, both television and print support & criticism news had a negative influence on Shell, Schiphol and Albert Heijn12. This may be explained by the fact that opponents, like diet guru Montignac for Albert Heijn and that ‘friends’ like the industry wanting less noise regula- tions for Schiphol, are no credible source concerning criticism or support news. However, contradicting the hypothesis, there was a positive relation between criticism on the police and its worsening reputation. This can be explained by the fact that “*m+ost support & criticism news came from the government, which is probably perceived by the respondents as impartial” (Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis, 2006).

Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis (2006) conclude with an advice for public relation departments:

In order to ride the waves of the news, public relation departments should carry out applied research to ﬁnd out whether, in their particular case, the broad generalizations also hold that successes generate a bandwagon effect, whereas criticisms from competitors will be harmless.

We would like to conclude this theoretical framework by saying that, although we were not able to analyze Delhaize Group and its competitors’ media coverage according to the NET method, we did try to analyze Delhaize Group’s media presence as accurate as possible. For a description of our methodology and findings, cf. 3.1 Main Case: an Analysis of Delhaize Group and its Main Competitors’ Presence in Financial and Belgian, Dutch and U.S. Regional Media.

12 Television support & criticism news for Shell and Schiphol; newspaper support & criticism news for Albert Heijn and Schiphol

3. Investor Relations and External Communications in an In- ternational Company

3.1 Main Case: an Analysis of Delhaize Group and its Main Competi- tors’ Presence in Financial and Belgian, Dutch and U.S. Regional Media

3.1.1 Introduction

Over the past years, Delhaize Group has worked with the media mostly in a reactive way. Typi- cally, the Belgian press is covering Delhaize Group as ‘Delhaize Belgium’. Although Delhaize Belgium is its historical home business, it is only one of Delhaize Group’s several operating companies.

Nevertheless, Delhaize Group has satisfying contacts with key journalists of Belgian newspapers and Brussels-based newswires who follow Delhaize Group closely. This is not the case internationally. Delhaize Group does not have a clear understanding of how it’s covered abroad, nor does it have a network of international media contacts. Delhaize Group wants to build an international media plan which enables them to pro-actively communicate with the media on the topics of interest to the company, its shareholders and stakeholders.

A first step was made in 2007, with the outset of Media Plan 2007. The 2007 Plan highlighted the same arguments as described above and argued that it was necessary to first map the media environment in which Delhaize Group and its competitors are present. That is why the 2010 Media Plan is to be based on a media analysis so that a proven and substantiated checklist could be formulated.

In the following pages, you can find a short summary, the methodology of this media analysis, the analysis’ findings and finally the checklist on which a 2010 Media Plan can be based.

3.1.2 Executive Summary

Following our analysis of Delhaize Group’s presence in international financial and Belgian, Dutch and U.S. media we noted that – In comparison to local competitor Harris Teeter – a lot of U.S. National and Regional Newspapers of key interest do (almost) not cover Delhaize Group. If they do, they mostly only write on ‘Delhaize America’ and not on ‘Delhaize Group’; they mostly only write on Industry related news and CR; they do not write on Q or Y Results or the Delhaize Group share. Also, some International Financial and Investment media almost not, or not at all, cover Delhaize Group. Finally, Newswires write more on competitors than on Delhaize Group. These three points should be changed to leverage the IR program and to reinforce and widen the investor base in the U.S.

The 2007 Media Plan said that although there are strong contacts with Belgian journalists, relations with international media are rare and poorly structured. We must be aware that other

33 parties continuously work the media, so we need to communicate our story proactively for de- fensive reasons. Via the media analysis we targeted some interesting media and journalists who write on key topics, write positively, and write negatively. We put these journalists into a List of Authors (cf. attachment 2).

Delhaize Group wants to be a credible acquirer. According to the media analysis, Delhaize Group has a positive image concerning M&A. However, we must make sure that we maintain this image via the media in the regions we operate in.

Delhaize Group has a strong management which is reflected in the media, more than competitor’s management teams, and especially in U.S. Newspapers and Retail magazines. However, Financial and Investment Publications, Dutch Newspapers and Newswires do not (often) talk about management profiles.

3.1.3 Methodology

The analysis reported in this case study was performed on a database (cf. attachment 1) of relevant news articles which appeared between April 1, 2009 and May 15, 2010. Articles are relevant when they are on relevant topics and on relevant companies and are published in relevant media.

Topics

To make a concrete and to the point analysis of the content of the articles possible, we focused on 6 predefined topics which are relevant to Delhaize Group’s business: Corporate Responsibili- ty, Industry, Executive profiles, Mergers & Acquisitions, Results and Shares.

Corporate Social Responsibility, by Delhaize Group referred to as Corporate Responsibility, is a self-regulation integrated in the company’s business model. According to the IBM-website (website, June 30, 2010) “The primary focus of *…+ corporate citizenship activities is on developing initiatives to address specific societal issues”. These issues concern the environment, com- munity economic development, education, health, literacy, language and culture. Of course, the CR policy of (food) distributors like Delhaize Group focuses on its business. Delhaize Group for example takes responsibility in initiatives concerning the “three P’s”: Products, People and Pla- net.

Industry, which we could also have referred to with Sector, contains a wide variety of subtopics like the company’s strategy, cost management, store concepts, store openings, store renewals, marketing, price, discounts, etc. It should be noted that articles only made it to the database if they were on corporate Industry news. This means that articles which were, for example, on one specific product discount or one specific or local marketing campaign were not screened if they had no relevance for Delhaize Group as a group of retail chains.

Executive profiles, or Management profiles, refer to interviews with somebody from the company’s management or articles about the management, their promotions or resignation, their board membership, etc.

Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) refers to the combining of two companies into one or two ta- keovers of one company by another. That means that a company buys another company or one of its subsidiaries. M&A usually results in the growth of a company but may not be mistaken with organic growth which is caused by store openings and are in our study considered to be- long to the topic Industry.

Results, as a topic, mainly refers to quarterly and yearly publications of the financial results of a company. Companies are required to publish a state of their revenues and profits or losses. In dialogue with the Delhaize Group IR & EC department managers, we also considered market share and dividends as belonging to Results, next to the quarterly and yearly financial updates.

Finally, the topic Shares can refer to Share advice by financial institutions picked up by the media, but also to shareholders, initial public offerings (IPO; if they had occurred), capital increase or decrease.

It is important to note that in our database, one article can be on more than one topic.

Companies

We thought it was only relevant to analyze a company’s media presence when we could compare it to comparable companies. Also, we wanted to check how competitors were presented in the media. Therefore, next to Delhaize Group, we also screened articles on Ahold, Carrefour, Colruyt, Harris Teeter and Wal-Mart. These companies were selected because they (partly) overlap with Delhaize Group’s market segments. For a description of these companies, cf. 1.7 Competitors. Because of the high amount of articles on Wal-Mart and Carrefour and the short amount of time to screen all articles, it was decided to read only the articles between April 1, 2009 and June 30, 2009 for Wal-Mart and the articles between April 1, 2009 and February 28, 2010 for Carrefour and to weigh them according to the period April 1, 2009 and May 2010 15, afterwards

Media

The selection of media (categories) was made by the Delhaize Group Vice President Investor Relations & External Communications Geert Verellen and should thus be seen from the perspective of Delhaize Group. This means that we read articles that appeared in U.S. and Belgian Regional Newspapers since the U.S. and Belgium account for 68.3% and 23.1% of Delhaize Group’s revenues. Delhaize Group is not present in the Netherlands. Nevertheless, we opted to take into account some Dutch Regional Newspapers. A first motivation is the geographical presence of the Netherlands, close to Delhaize Group’s historical market. Other reasons are Ahold’s presence in Delhaize Group’s U.S. markets and its announced venture into Belgium; and finally Colruyt’s attempted venture into the Netherlands.

Of course, we also read Retail Magazines which cover the business, Newswires and Financial and Investment Publications which are important for investors. Finally, we also read some Digi- tal Retail Magazines to gauge online news on the business.

A list of the screened media (categories) can be found in table 3.1.

Table 3.1: Screened media (categories)

 Financial and Investment Publications Barron’s, De Tijd, Het Financieel Dagblad, HP/De Tijd, L'Echo, NRC Handelsblad, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, The Times (UK), The Wall Street Jour- nal, The Washington Post  Retail Magazines Gondola (Belgian), Progressive Grocer, Supermarket News  Regional and national newspapers: o Belgium De Gazet van Antwerpen, De Morgen, De Standaard, Het Belang van Limburg, Het Laatste Nieuws, Het Nieuwsblad, Le Soir, La Libre Belgique, La Dernière Heure o Netherlands Algemeen Dagblad, De Telegraaf, De Volkskrant o U.S Northwest Florida Daily News, Portland Press Herald, Salisbury Post, Sa- rasota Herald-Tribune, Tampa Tribune, The Charlotte Observer, The Fayetteville Observer, The Sun-News, The Virginian Pilot, Winston- Salem Journal  Newswires Agentschap Belga, ANP-Reuters, Associated Press, Bloomberg Money, Reuters  Digital Just Food, Morning Newsbeat

We are aware of the fact that our selection does not generate a representative coverage of the media landscape. First, the media categories are not exhaustive. The amount of media in a specific media category is not equated between the different media categories. E.g. Not all major Dutch newspapers are present in the Dutch Regional Newspapers media category; the same goes for the U.S. newspapers, which are in fact only East Coast newspapers. On the other hand, almost all major Belgian newspapers are present in the Belgian Regional Newspapers media category.

Secondly, although Carrefour and Colruyt are present in France, we did not screen any French newspapers. Also, although the company is only present in the U.S., we also screened Belgian and Dutch newspapers for articles on Harris Teeter. These aberrations may distort our calculated averages and percentages. However, we would like to state that this selection of media was predefined by the Delhaize Group management. This means that they do provide useful insights, albeit only from a Delhaize Group perspective.

Finding the Articles

To find the relevant articles, initially, Factiva was used. Factiva (http://global.factiva.com/) is an online search engine by DowJones and can be used to find news articles. By inserting the name

36 of the company we were looking for, the time slot and the different media we wanted to screen, we could easily find most articles. However, some media were not accessible through Factiva. For articles in the following media, we used the medium’s website’s own search engine: La Libre Belgique, The Charlotte Observer, Salisbury Post, Morning Newsbeat, La Dernière Heure, Het Financieele Dagblad, Le Soir, Gondola, NRC Handelsblad, HP/De Tijd. Since Delhaize Group has no subscription to NRC Handelsblad and HP/De Tijd, some articles on relevant companies might not have been screened, causing them to have a lower importance in the database, compared to other media. More information on the screened articles can be found in the media database (cf. attachment 1).

In total, 3,050 articles13, published between April 1, 2009 and May 15, 2010 were analyzed. We read 563 articles for Delhaize Group, 644 for Ahold, 710 for Carrefour14, 636 for Colruyt, 364 for Wal-Mart15 and 133 for Harris Teeter.

Construction of the Database

The database (cf. attachment 1) was constructed by using Microsoft Office Excel. Each company was assigned its own tab which contains a specific grid structure. The grid has a list of all the screened articles (with their date, author and medium) on the far left column (y-axis) and the different topics in the top row or header (x-axis). Next to the different topics, also information about the tone of voice (positive, neutral or negative) and the geographical segment could be indicated per article. This way, information in the database is structured on the basis of coordi- nates with on the y-axis information about the origin of the article (its author, date of publication and medium) and on the x-axis information on the content of the article (its topic, tone of voice and the segment).

Defining the Tone of Voice

As described in the theoretical framework, a linguistic in-depth screening of the tone of voice of the articles was not possible because of the short time perspective. In this study, tone of voice (positive, neutral or negative) does not refer to the content of an article (e.g. bad news like fiscal fraud or good news like good quarterly results) or actors in an article (e.g. competitors, the government). Instead, tone of voice only refers to the attitude a journalist or author has towards a specific company in a specific article. This means that an article which brings failure or criticism news, but written with a positive attitude towards the company is seen as a positive article.

For example, the article “Colruyt haalt ‘zuurkool met kakkerlakken’ uit de rekken” (Colruyt takes ‘sour crout with cockroaches’ off the shelves; Gazet van Antwerpen, May 4, 2009) has a negative content, but with a positive attitude. The journalist explicitly writes: “Moerenhout [the customer who had bought a can with a cockroach in it+ kon er smakelijk om lachen” (Moeren-

13 Matching the Carrefour and Wal-Mart data for the April 1, 2009 – May 15, 2010 period (cf. following footnotes), the number of articles was put to 4,578 14 For Carrefour, we only read articles from April 1, 2009 until February 28, 2010. All Carrefour data were matched with the April 1, 2009 – May 15, 2010 period by multiplying with a factor of 1.27 15 For Wal-Mart, we only read articles from April 1, 2009 until June 30, 2009. All Wal-Mart data were matched with the April 1, 2009 – May 15, 2010 period by multiplying with a factor of 4.67

37 hout took it with a smile) and “Wij zijn die man dankbaar”, zegt woordvoerder Tim De Meyer” (We are grateful, says spokesman Tim De Meyer; Gazet van Antwerpen, May 4, 2009). This article was added to the database as a positive article.

Another article had a neutral content, but was added to the database as a positive article. The article was on M&A and was a neutral description of Colruyt taking over a French retail company. Nevertheless, the article had as its headline: “Colruyt shopt in Frankrijk” (Colruyt shops in France) where the English loanword “shopt” in a Dutch context was seen as a carrier of clear positive attitude.

As becomes apparent from these two examples, tone of voice was initially determined on the basis of a lexical semantics: “smakelijk om lachen”, “dankbaar” and “shopt”.

When articles contained contradictory semantic clusters the tone of voice was determined mathematically. This means that if there was one cluster with a positive tone of voice and another cluster with a negative tone of voice, the article was considered as neutral. If there were two positive clusters and one negative, the article was considered positive.

Segments

With segments, we mean geographical segments; countries or regions where the focal companies are active in. The geographical segments can be different for different companies. E.g. Del- haize Group and Wal-Mart are active in the U.S. but Colruyt is not, whereas Colruyt is active in France and Delhaize Group is not.

For Delhaize Group, we took the segments Delhaize Group uses itself to divide its business in to geographical regions: the U.S. (the East Coast), Belgium (which includes the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg), Greece and finally the segment which Delhaize Group refers to as ‘Rest of the World’ which comprises the Romanian and Indonesian activities.

For Ahold, we considered the U.S., the Netherlands and finally Belgium. For Carrefour, we took into account France, Belgium and the Rest of the World (which of course comprises different countries than Romania and Indonesia). For Colruyt, we looked at the segments Belgium and France. For Wal-Mart we looked at the U.S. and Rest of the World (which in this study mainly meant Mexico). Harris Teeter is only present in the U.S. so there was no need to specify a certain segment.

Preparing the Data for Analysis

After all companies were screened, the articles were counted per medium and then per topic, gradation of tone of voice and segment. That way, we could tell – for example – how many articles on Wal-Mart there were in The Boston Globe that were on CR; and how many of them were in a positive tone of voice; and how many of them were on the United States. Or, how many articles on Carrefour were in De Tijd that were on M&A; and how many of them were in a negative tone of voice; and how many were on Belgium.

Because we only screened articles for Carrefour between April 1, 2009 and February 28, 2010 and for Wal-Mart between April 1, 2009 and June 30, 2009 numbers for both companies were multiplied by 1.27 and 4.67 respectively to equate them with the other company’s articles.

Next, a new grid per company was made with on the left a list of all media and in the header the topics, the three gradations of tone of voice and the geographical segments. In the cells, the absolute number of articles was mentioned.

Then, the percentage of articles in a specific medium on a specific topic could be calculated. Because one article can be on more than one topic, the sum of all topic percentages can be more than 100% for one medium. E.g. a specific medium can dedicate 60.0% of its articles to topic A and 45.0% to topic B.

Also, the percentage of positive, neutral or negative articles in a specific medium could be calculated. Because one article can be either positive, neutral or negative, the sum of all tone of voice percentages is exactly 100%. E.g. a specific medium can be positive in 45.0% of its articles, neutral in 25.0% and negative in 30.0%

Finally, also the percentage of news on different segments per medium was calculated. Again, one article could be on more than one segment, so again their percentage’s sum was more than 100%.

In our analyses, percentages are mentioned when they are based on 20 or more articles. Abso- lute numbers are mentioned when there are 19 or less articles for a specific medium, topic, segment or for the tone of voice.

Consolidation

Also, all figures for all companies were consolidated in one Excel tab so that a specific company could be compared to the overall business. Our report starts with an analysis of the consolidated figures.

3.1.4 Analysis of the Consolidated Figures for all Companies’s Media Presence

The analysis of the consolidated figures for all companies was based on a corpus of 4,578 ar- ticles16.

3.1.4.1 Quantity of Articles

Most of the articles in the database can be found in 9 Belgian Newspapers (29.1% of all articles), 11 Financial and Investment Publications (25.4%) and 5 Newswires (24.2%). U.S. Newspapers were responsible for only 3.8% of the articles in the corpus while the 10 investigated U.S. Newspapers represent 23.0% of our media selection (43 media) and all investigated companies, except for Colruyt and Carrefour, are present on the U.S. East Coast. 2.9% of all articles in the corpus were found in the 3 investigated Dutch Newspapers.

16 In reality only 3,050 articles were read. However, to equate all articles, the 710 Carrefour articles and 364 Wal- Mart articles were multiplied by a factor 1.27 and 4.67 respectively.

Prolific writers are Associated Press (responsible for 9.0% of all articles in the corpus), The Wall Street Journal (7.2%), Bloomberg Money (6.9%; though almost only on Wal-Mart) and Morning Newsbeat (6.2%).

3.1.4.2 Tone of voice

On average, the media in our selection are fairly positive on the distribution sector. 46.6% of all articles in our corpus have a positive tone of voice. 27.3% is in a neutral tone of voice and 24.0% is negative.

Especially Dutch Newspapers, Newswires and Financial and Investment Publications tend to be positive (respectively in 50.6%, 50.5% and 49.2% of their articles). At the same time, Dutch Newspapers are negative in 39.7% of their articles. This means they usually pick a side (as they are neutral in only 9.7% of their articles). Retail magazines are the least negative (7.3% of their articles).

3.1.4.3 Topics

17.4% of all 4,578 articles in our corpus is on CR. Media dedicating a lot of importance to CR are U.S. Newspapers (29.3% of their 174 articles). Especially the Portland Press Herald (6 of its 8 articles) and The Virginian Pilot (50.0% of its 45 articles) write on CR. Financial and Investment Publications dedicate the least attention to CR (11.1% of their 1,062 articles). Media not writing on CR are L’Echo (0 of its 91 articles), The New York Times (0 of its 39 articles), ANP-Reuters (3.6% of its 84 articles) and Barron’s (3.9% of its 121 articles).

Articles on CR are positive in 46.3% of cases. 35.0% of all articles on CR are negative; 18.7% are neutral.

Industry

51.4% of all articles in the corpus is on Industry related matters. Especially U.S. and Belgian Newspapers write on Industry (respectively 68.6% and 64.7% of their 174 and 1333 articles). Especially The Sun News (95.8% of its 24 articles), The Virginian Pilot (86.8% of its 45 articles), La Dernière Heure (82.6% of its 186 articles) and Het Nieuwsblad (75.5% of its 137 articles) write on Industry.

Digital media (42.9% of their 485 articles), Newswires (43.1% of their 1107 articles) and Finan- cial Publications (44.1% of their 1062 articles) dedicate the least attention of all media to Indus- try. Especially The Times (UK) (18.7% of its articles of its 38 articles) and L’Echo (20.3% of its 91 articles) write very little on Industry.

News on Industry is in a positive tone of voice (46.6%); neutral (29.1%) or negative (24.3%).

Management, Executive profile

On average, all media write on Management profiles in 6.3% of their 4,578 relevant retail articles. Especially Retail Magazines (10.5% of their 282 articles) and Digital Media (9.7% of their

485 articles) dedicate articles to news on executives. Supermarket News for example dedicates 14.1% of its 183 articles to Executive profiles.

Only 4.6% of the 174 U.S. Newspaper articles is on Management profiles. This is mainly due to the fact that only 3 U.S. Newspapers write on executives. However, those that do write a lot on it (Salisbury Post, 12.9% of its 39 articles; The Charlotte Observer, 7.8% of its 25 articles).

Most of the 290 articles on Management profiles are neutral descriptions of job promotions or transfers. That is why most articles on this topic are neutral (40.1%). Other articles are interviews with executives or overviews of managers’ resumes and tend to be in a positive tone of voice. 38.0% of all articles on Executive profiles are positive. 21.9% is negative.

Mergers & Acquisitions

9.2% of all 4,578 articles in our selection is on M&A. Media writing a lot on M&A are Het Finan- cieele Dagblad (25.7% of its 145 articles), Just Food (20.4% of its 203 articles), Reuters (18.1% of its 160 articles), De Tijd (17.3% of its 187 articles), L’Echo (13.9% of its 91 articles) and Gondola (13.8% of its 29 articles).

News on mergers is mostly positive (49.2%) or neutral (31.4%). 19.5% of all articles on M&A is negative.

Results

On average, more than a quarter of all articles in our corpus is on quarterly or yearly Results. As can be expected, particularly Financial and Investment Publications (34.1% of their 1,062 articles) and Newswires (32.0% of their 1,107 articles) publish on Results. Especially The New York Times (60.4% of its 39 articles) and ANP-Reuters (57.6% of its 84 articles) write on Results. Other prolific media are The Boston Globe (48.9% of its 59 articles) and The Times (UK) (48.5% of its 38 articles).

Retail Magazines do not often write on Results (only 13.7% of their 282 articles). Especially Pro- gressive Grocer is not interested in Results as only 2.8% of its 71 articles is on this topic.

52.3% of all articles on Results is in a positive tone of voice, while 27.8% is negative. 19.9% is neutral.

Media dedicate, on average, 10.8% of their 4,578 relevant articles to Shares. Not unexpectedly, Financial and Investment Publications and Newswires are well above that average with 16.4% and 12.5% respectively of their 1,062 and 1,107 articles on Shares. Especially Barron’s (38.5% of its 121 articles), L’Echo (36.7% of its 91 articles) and Reuters (19.1% of its 160 articles) write on share information.

Writing mostly on CR and Industry, both Digital media and Retail Magazines do not write a lot on Shares (3.2% and 2.5% of their 485 and 282 articles respectively).

Well over more than half of the articles on Shares are in a positive tone of voice (61.4%). With 21.4% articles neutral, 17.2% is negative. This could be due to the recovery on the stock exchanges after March 200917.

3.1.5 Analysis of Delhaize Group’s Media Presence

For Delhaize Group, 563 relevant articles were found.

3.1.5.1 Quantity of Articles

To compare the media - and the media category influence, we checked for each medium and media category how many of the total amount of articles they wrote. In the table 3.2 we give an overview of the percentage of articles a certain media category is responsible for. If we compare the number of articles produced by the different media categories to the number of media in the categories we can see that Belgian Newspapers dedicate the most attention to Delhaize Group (only 9 media are responsible for 42.8% of all articles on Delhaize Group). Secondly, only 2 Digital Media are responsible for 7.8% of all articles. Media categories writing very little on Delhaize Group, compared to other categories, are the Newswires, Dutch Newspapers and especially U.S. regional Newspapers.

Table 3.2: Comparison of the different Media Categories covering Delhaize Group

Media Category % of total amount of articles 11 Financial and Investment Publications 25.8% 3 Retail Magazines 10.0% 22 Regional and National Newspapers 49.7% 9 Belgium 42.8% 3 Netherlands 1.6% 10 U.S 5.3% 5 Newswires 6.8% 2 Digital 7.8%

Media writing the most on Delhaize Group are De Tijd (10.8% of the total amount of articles), L’Echo (7.6%), Het Laatste Nieuws (7.6%), De Standaard (7.5%), La Libre Belgique (6.6%), Morn- ing Newsbeat (6.4%) and Supermarket News (6.2%). Media not writing, or writing very little on Delhaize Group are Barron’s, HP/De Tijd, the New York Times, The Times (UK), The Washington Post, De Volkskrant, Northwest Florida Daily News, The Virginian Pilot (all 0 articles), NRC Handelsblad, The Boston Globe, Sarasota-Herald Tribune, Tampa Tribune, Winston-Salem Journal and Bloomberg Money (all 1 article).

3.1.5.2 Tone of Voice

Generally, most media write positively on Delhaize Group18. Retail Magazines and Digital Maga- zines Progressive Grocer (10 of this medium’s 11 articles on Delhaize Group), Just Food (7 of 8

17 Our corpus consist of articles between April 2009 – May 2010

42 articles) and Supermarket News (82.9% of 35 articles) write very positively on Delhaize Group. Also Regional and National Newspapers (65.0% of 280 articles) Salisbury Post (11 of 14 articles), De Morgen (75.0% of 20 articles), De Gazet van Antwerpen (13 of 18 articles) and La Dernière Heure (71.4% of 21 articles) write in a positive tone of voice.

Media that sometimes write negatively on Delhaize Group are Regional and National Newspa- pers Het Nieuwsblad (28.6% of 28 articles) and De Standaard (23.8% of 42 articles); Retail Mag- azine Gondola (3 of 10 articles); and Newswire Reuters (3 of 12 articles).

Only G. Se. (La Libre Belgique) wrote in a negative tone of voice more than once19. But he wrote in a positive tone of voice in 8 of his articles. Other journalist that write a lot in a positive tone of voice are: Kiviniemi Peppi (The Wall Street Journal), Spencer Mimosa (The Wall Street Jour- nal), Angrisani Carol (Supermarket News), Hamstra Mark (Supermarket News), Springer Jon (Supermarket News), Vanbrussel Emmanuel (De Morgen), Dereymaeker Frank (Het Laatste Nieuws), Munster Jean-François (Le Soir), Thomas Pierre-Henri (Le Soir), A. Ma. (La Libre Belgique), Baus Monique (La Libre Belgique), Ferroni Nancy (La Dernière Heure), N.F. (La Dernière Heure), V.S (La Dernière Heure), Aronoff Jen (Charlotte Observer) and Coupe Kevin (Morning Newsbeat).

3.1.5.3 Topics

For Delhaize Group, as for the consolidated figures, Industry is the most popular topic (43.0% of all Delhaize Group articles), but less so than for the consolidated figures (50.2% of the consolidated articles are on Industry). 23.1% of all Delhaize Group articles are on Results (compared to 26.0% consolidated).

With 20.3% of all Delhaize Group articles on M&A, this topic is more popular for Delhaize Group, than for the consolidated figures (9.2%). Also Shares is more popular concerning Delha- ize Group (15.1% compared to 10.8%).

13.3% of all Delhaize Group articles is on CR, which is less than the 17.4% on CR of all articles. Delhaize Group executives are mentioned in 9.2% of the Delhaize Group articles (6.2% consolidated).

We see that Progressive Grocer, more than any other medium, writes on CR. CR is also the most common topic in Progressive Grocer articles on Delhaize Group (7 of 11 articles). Media categories writing very little on CR are Digital Just Food (0 of 8 articles), all Financial and Investment publications (2.8% of 145 articles) and all Newswires (5.3% of 38 articles).

18 Although Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Tampa Tribune write exclusively positively (100%) they provide a distorted view since they amount for only one article. Therefore, they are not taken into account here. When this phenomenon repeats itself for other subjects, those media will also not be taken into account. 19 Statistics for journalists are not fully accurate, since many articles do not mention an author.

Articles on CR are mostly written in a positive tone of voice (58.1%) or neutral (32.2%). Media writing negatively on CR are Het Financieele Dagblad (in its only article on CR), Gondola (in its only article on CR), Het Nieuwsblad (1 of 3 articles on CR), La Dernière Heure (2 of 4 articles on CR). Journalists writing on CR a lot are Angrisani Carol (Supermarket News) and Hamstra Mark (Su- permarket News).

Industry

All media categories (except Newswires and Digital Just Food) write more on Industry related news than on any other topic. Obviously, Retail magazines write a lot on Industry (57.1% of their 56 articles). Nevertheless, Progressive Grocer is an exception (cf. CR). Also Regional and National newspaper La Dernière Heure (81.0% of 21 articles) writes a lot on Industry. Media writing very little on Industry are the Newswires (31.6% of 38 articles), the Financial and In- vestment Publications (35.2% of 145 articles) and Digital Media (36.4% of 44 articles).

Articles on Industry news are mostly positive (68.1%). Especially Supermarket News (85.7% of 21 articles on Industry), La Libre Belgique (11 of 13 articles on Industry), De Gazet van Antwer- pen (15 of 18 articles on Industry), L’Echo (5 of 6 articles on Industry), Het Financieele Dagblad (4 of 5 articles on Industry).

Media writing negatively on Industry concerning Delhaize Group are De Telegraaf (in its only article on Industry), The Boston Globe (in its only article on Industry) and also Agentschap Belga (2 of 5 articles on Industry).

Journalists writing on Industry a lot are Angrisani Carol (Supermarket News), Spencer Mimosa (The Wall Street Journal), Hamstra Mark (Supermarket News), Springer Jon (Supermarket News), Vanbrussel Emmanuel (De Morgen), Baus Monique (La Libre Belgique), Ferroni Nancy (La Der- nière Heure), L.S. (La Dernière Heure), N.F. (La Dernière Heure), V.S. (La Dernière Heure), Boo- gaard Frans (Algemeen Dagblad), Orgel David (Supermarket News), Kiviniemi Peppi (The Wall Street Journal), Maarten van Tartwijk (The Wall Street Journal), Anna Marij Van der Meulen (The Wall Street Journal).

Management, Executive Profile

The topic least written about is Executive profile (only 9.3% of the 563 articles on Delhaize Group). In general Retail magazines (23.2% of their 56 articles) like Supermarket News (34.3% of its 35 articles); US newspapers (26.7% of their 30 articles) like Portland Press Herald (1 of its 2 articles), The Charlotte Observer (2 of 6 articles) and Salisbury Post (5 of 14 articles); and Digital media (15.9% of their 44 articles) write on Executive profile more than any other Media category. Also, Le Soir (27.2% of 22 articles) writes a lot on Executive profiles. None of the Newswires and Dutch Newspapers writes on Delhaize Group Executive profiles. Financial and Investment Publications dedicate only 4.1% of their 145 articles to Executive Pro- files.

Articles on Management profiles are never in a negative tone of voice (0 of all 52 articles on Executive profiles). 71.2% of all 52 articles on Executive profile are positive.

Journalists writing on Executive profile a lot are Aronoff Jen (Charlotte Observer), Hamstra Mark (Supermarket News), Munster Jean-François (Le Soir), Springer Jon (Supermarket News).

Mergers & Acquisitions

A considerable 20.3% of all 563 articles is about M&A. Newswires report almost twice as much as this average coverage on M&A (36.8% of their 38 articles). Also Digital Media (25.0% of 44 articles), US Newspapers (23.3% of 30 articles) The Sun News (2 of 3 articles) and Salisbury Post (4 of 14 articles); and Financial and Investment Publications (21.4% of 145 articles) write a lot on Mergers. These are followed by Belgian Newspapers (17.4% of 241 articles), Retail Maga- zines (14.3% of 56 articles) and Dutch Newspapers (1 of 9 articles).

News on M&A is mostly in a positive (62.3%) or neutral (23.7%) tone of voice. Other media are in more cases positive than neutral or negative. Reuters is positive in all of its 5 articles on M&A. The Walloon Newspapers La Dernière Heure, La Libre Belgique and Le Soir are positive in all of their 1, 3 and 3 articles on M&A respectively. L’Echo is positive in 8 of its 9 M&A articles. Just Food is positive in 5 of its 6 articles on M&A. Het Laatste Nieuws and Het Belang van Limburg are positive in 9 of its 12 and 3 of its 4 M&A articles respectively. Agentschap Belga is positive in 5 of its 8 articles on M&A. De Tijd is positive in 8 and neutral in 4 of its 15 articles on M&A. Morning Newsbeat was neutral in 4 of its 5 M&A articles, which were only on the Bi- Lo acquisition. Also the Salisbury Post solely wrote on Bi-Lo and was positive in 2 and neutral in the other 2 of its 4 M&A articles.

Journalists writing on M&A a lot are Coupe Kevin (Morning Newsbeat), Dereymaeker Frank (Het Laatste Nieuws), Evenepoel Kim (De Tijd), Munster Jean-François (Le Soir).

Results

22.7% of all 563 articles on Delhaize Group is on Results and is therefore written about the most, not counting the topic Industry. Not coincidentally, Financial and Investment Publications write more than any other media category on Results (in 31.7% of their 145 articles). We can see that of all Financial and Investment Publications, The Wall Street Journal dedicates more articles to Results than any other medium in this category20 (58.3% of its 24 articles). Also, De Tijd has a lot articles on Results (36.1% of its 61 articles). Strangely enough, its Walloon sister L’Echo has fewer articles on Results than any other medium in this category (14.0% of its 43 articles). Also Belgian National and Regional Newspapers write a lot on Results (24.1% of 280 articles). Le Soir in 40.9% of its 22 articles, De Morgen in 35.0% of its 20 articles and De Gazet van Antwerpen and Het Belang van Limburg in 6 of its 18 and 3 of its 10. Remarkably, De Stan- daard does so in only 23.8% of its 42. Popular newspapers like Het Nieuwsblad (14.2% of its 28), Het Laatste Nieuws (14.1% of its 43) and La Dernière Heure (9.5% of its 21) lag behind. News-

20 Not counting The Boston Globe and NRC Handelsblad, which only have 1 article each in the corpus. The first is on Results, the latter not.

45 wires write a lot on Results too (in 22.1% of their 38 articles). Dutch Algemeen Dagblad never writes on Results (in 3 articles) while De Telegraaf dedicates 2 of its 6 articles to Results. U.S. Newspapers in the corpus write the least of any media category on Results (6.7% of their 30 articles). Only The Charlotte Observer does so in 2 of its 6 articles). Also Retail magazines write very little on Results (8.9% of their 56 articles) which may be explained by the fact that write a lot on Industry related news.

Results is the most positive (69.3% of 130 articles on Results) of all topics considered, except for Management profile. All articles on Results in De Morgen, L’Echo, Supermarket News and La Dernière Heure are positive (based on 7, 6, 4 and 2 articles respectively). 8 of all 11 articles on Results in La Libre Belgi- que is positive, while 6 of 9 articles on Results in Le Soir is. Negative articles can be found in Agentschap Belga (2 of its 4 articles on Results).

Journalists writing on Results are Baus Monique (La Libre Belgique), M. Bs. (La Libre Belgique), Munster Jean-François (Le Soir), Thomas Pierre-Henri (Le Soir), Springer Jon (Supermarket News).

Articles on the Delhaize Group shares account for 15.1% of all 563 Delhaize Group articles. Ob- viously, they can be found in Financial and Investment Publications, whose articles are on Shares in 26.2% of 145 cases. L’Echo writes on the Delhaize Group share in 51.1% of its 41 articles on Delhaize Group21. De Tijd and The Wall Street Journal do so in 18.0% and 16.7% of their 61 and 24 articles. Also Newswires (18.4% of their 38 articles) and Belgian (13.7% of 241. Retail Magazines (3.6% of 56 articles) and U.S. Newspapers (3.3% of 30 articles) do not write about the Delhaize Group share.

22.4% of all 85 articles on the Delhaize Group share are in a negative tone of voice, while 60.0% are positive. 3 of Het Laatste Nieuws’s 8 articles on the share are negative and 31.8% of L’Echo’s 22 is. 4 of De Standaard’s 5 articles on the share are positive.

A journalist writing on the Delhaize Group share a lot is G. Se. (La Libre Belgique).

3.1.5.4 Segments

Most Delhaize Group attention goes to the U.S.: 29.5% of all 563 articles is about specific Amer- ican subjects. Another 29.3% of all articles is on all segments at once or none of them specifically. 27.1% of all articles is on Belgium, 10.7% on Greece and 3.4% gives specific information about banners in the Rest of the World. These percentages are not evenly distributed according to Delhaize Group’s turnover in the different segments. Nevertheless, the order of the sizes does respect the segments magnitude.

21 Note that articles on day-to-day share evolutions are not taken into account, otherwise.

Retail Magazines accord 67.9% of their 56 articles to the U.S., 21.4% to Belgium, 1.8% to Greece and 3.6% to the Rest of the World. However, Gondola writes all of its 10 articles on Belgium and Progressive Grocer dedicates all of its 11 articles to the U.S. and 9.1% of its 11 articles to the other segments each. Supermarket News has 74.3% of its 35 articles on the U.S., 2.9% on Bel- gium and the Rest of the World each, and none on Greece.

This almost accurate equilibrium is absent when looking at other media (categories). U.S. Na- tional or Regional Newspapers only write on American banners (96.7% of their 30 articles), and mostly on Food Lion LLC. (50.0 % of their 30 articles). Although a lot of U.S. Newspaper articles mention ‘Delhaize Group’ and its Belgian chair, only 3.3% of their articles is really on Delhaize Group as an international company. Belgian Newspapers write specifically on the U.S. in 11.6% of their 241 articles, 39.8% on Bel- gium specifically; 9.1% on Greece and 3.3% on the Rest of the World. Articles on Greece are in more cases than other segments positive (78.3%).

3.1.6 Analysis of Ahold’s Media Presence

For Ahold, 644 of relevant articles were found.

3.1.6.1 Quantity of Articles

Most of the articles on Ahold in our selection can be found in Financial and Investment Publica- tions (42.2% of all 644 articles), Newswires (20.0%), and Dutch newspapers (18.3%). Only 4 of the 643 Ahold articles in our selection were found in U.S. Regional Newspapers.

Especially Het Financieel Dagblad writes a lot on Ahold (14.1% of all 643 articles on Ahold). Also, Algemeen Dagblad (10.6%) and ANP-Reuters (10.4%) write a lot on Ahold.

3.1.6.2 Tone of voice

Although the majority of the 644 articles on Ahold is positive (51.4%), a considerable 31.7% is in a negative tone of voice. This is especially true for Dutch media in general22 (36.0% of their 214 articles are negative). 43.2% of 118 articles in Dutch Regional and National newspapers is negative. This tendency could be due to the fact that Dutch newspapers, unlike other media, keep referring to Ahold’s 2003 accounting scandal.

Also Digital media (36.8% of their articles) write negatively on Ahold.

Retail magazines (74.0% of their 77 articles), Newswires (60.5% of their 129 articles) and Belgian Newspapers (56.3% of their 48 articles) write positively on Ahold.

Authors writing positively on Ahold are Stephanie De Smedt (De Tijd), David Orgel (Supermarket News), Emmanuel Van Brussel (De Morgen), Franka Rolvink (Het Financieele Dagblad), and R. Smit (Het Financieele Dagblad).

22 Including the Dutch regional and national newspapers and also the Dutch Financial and Investment Publications (Het Financieele Dagblad, HP/De Tijd and NRC Handelsblad)

An author writing negatively on Ahold is Mark Potter (Reuters).

3.1.6.3 Topics

Media writing a lot on CR are Retail Magazines (27.3% of their 77 articles) and Dutch Newspa- pers (21.2% of their 118 articles). Belgian Newspapers only dedicate 2.1% of their 48 articles on Ahold to CR-related matters.

Ahold related articles on CR are either positive (42.5%) or negative (41.4%).

Dutch De Telegraaf and Algemeen Dagblad and Associated Press write in a negative tone of voice on CR in more than half of its articles (87.5% of 49, 58.8% of 68 and 62.5% of 23 respectively). Morning Newsbeat writes negative on CR in 50.0% of its 63 articles.

Different than other Dutch media, Het Financieele Dagblad writes positively on CR in 75.0% of its 8 CR articles (and never negative). Supermarket News writes positively in 71.4% of its 14 Ahold articles on CR; Progressive Grocer in all of its 7 articles on Ahold’s CR policy.

Industry

As for Delhaize Group, Industry is a popular topic in Ahold articles as well. 37.4% of all 644 articles on Ahold is on Industry. Especially Dutch Regional and National newspapers (50.9% of their 118 articles), Retail magazines (40.3% of their 77 articles), Digital Media (39.0% of their 95 articles) and Financial and Investment Publications (38.2% of their 173 articles) write on Indus- try.

Most of the 241 Ahold articles on Industry are positive (47.7%), but 39.3% is in a negative tone of voice. All of the 6 Associated Press articles on Industry are in a negative tone of voice. 72.0% of all 25 De Telegraaf Ahold articles on Industry are negative. 6 of all 11 Just Food articles on Industry are negative. Media writing in a positive voice on Ahold’s CR-matters are Agentschap Belga (all of its 6 articles on Industry), De Standaard (all of its 4 articles on Industry), Progressive Grocer (7 of its 9 articles on Industry), Algemeen Dagblad (70.6% of its 34 articles on Industry) and De Morgen (2 of its 3 articles on Industry).

Management, Executive profile

Executive profiles is written on the least, compared to the other topics (7.6% of all 644 articles on Ahold). Retail and Digital magazines dedicate 11.7% and 9.5% respectively of their 77 and 95 articles to Management. U.S. and Belgian Newspapers do not write on Management profiles (0 of 4 articles and 1 of 48 articles respectively).

Ahold Articles on Management and Executive profiles are positive (65.3%) or neutral (24.5%). Especially Supermarket News is positive (6 of its 7 articles on Executive profiles) and so are Het

Financieele Dagblad (5 of 6 articles on Executive profiles), ANP-Reuters (6 of 8 articles on Execu- tive profiles) and De Telegraaf (4 of 6 articles on Executive profiles).

Mergers & Acquisitions

21.7% of all 644 Ahold articles is on M&A. 3 out of the 4 articles in U.S. Newspapers are on M&A. Belgian Newspapers write a lot on Ahold’s M&A as well (16 of their 48 articles). La Libre Belgique (all of its 3 articles), Het Laatste Nieuws (4 of 7 articles), De Morgen (3 of their 6 articles), Le Soir (3 of 6 articles) and De Standaard (3 of 17 articles) mostly speculate on Aholds takeover of Carrefour’s Belgian stores. 48.0% of De Tijd’s 25 articles are on M&A. Digital magazines dedicate 32.6% of their 95 articles to M&A.

Articles on Mergers are mainly positive (48.6%) or negative (30.0%). Progressive Grocer is positive in all of its 3 articles on M&A; Supermarket News in 5 of 6 articles, Reuters in 4 of 5 articles, ANP-Reuters in 6 of 8 articles. De Morgen is negative in 2 of its 3 articles on M&A; Morning Newsbeat in 63.64% of its 22 articles on M&A, The Wall Street Journal in 57.1% of 29 articles and Het Laatste Nieuws in 2 of its 4 articles on M&A.

Results

29.4% of all 644 articles on Ahold are on Results. More than half of all 129 Ahold articles in Newswires are on Results (52.7%); especially Reuters (69.0% of 20 articles) and ANP-Reuters (53.7% of 67 articles) dedicate a lot of their articles to Results. Belgian Regional and National Newspapers De Standaard (8 of its 17 articles) and Het Nieuwsblad (2 of its 5 articles) write on Results as well. Dutch Regional and National Newspapers, on the other hand, only dedicate 17.0% on average of their 118 articles to Results. Financial and Investment Publications have 25.4% of their 173 articles on Results. 6 of the 7 articles in L’Echo and 72.4% of the 29 articles in The Wall Street Journal are on Results; NRC Handelsblad 1 of 3 and Het Financieele Dagblad 24.2 of 91. None of the 4 U.S. Regional newspapers has Ahold articles on Results.

Articles on Results are usually positive (59.1% of all 69 articles on Results) or negative (27.4%). De Standaard is positive in 7 of its 8 articles on Results; De Tijd in 4 of its 5 articles, Agentschap Belga in 3 of its 4 articles; Supermarket News in 8 of its 11 articles; Algemeen Dagblad in 7 of 10 articles. L’Echo is negative on Results in 4 of 6 of its articles; De Telegraaf in 5 of 10 articles

11.8% of all 644 articles on Ahold is on the Ahold share. Media dedicating a lot of their Ahold articles to shares are Belgian newspapers (29.2% of their 48 Ahold articles), Newswires (16.3% of 129 articles) and Financial and Investment Publications (11.0% of 173 articles).

U.S. Newspapers do not write on the Ahold share (none of their 4 articles), nor do Digital Media (2.1% of their 95 articles) or Retail Magazines (2.6% of their 77 articles).

65.3% of all 76 articles on Shares are in a positive tone of voice; 21.3% of all articles on Shares are negative. No medium is more negative than positive on Shares.

3.1.6.4 Segments

Most Ahold articles in our selection that deal on a specific segment are on the U.S. (29.8% of all 644 Ahold articles) and the Netherlands (26.7%). 6.5% of all Ahold articles that deal on a specific segment is on Belgium.

The 4 U.S. Newspaper articles on Ahold in our selection are all dedicated to the U.S. None of them deals on the Netherlands or Belgium. Dutch Regional and National Newspapers on the other hand dedicate 67.8% of their 118 articles to the Netherlands and only 5.9% to the U.S. (0.9% to Belgium).

Retail Magazines and Digital Media dedicate 64.9% and 67.4% of their 77 and 95 articles respectively to the U.S. segment in specific. Both dedicate less than 4.0% to the Netherlands or Bel- gium.

Articles on the U.S. are positive in 49.2% of cases (negative in 29.8%). Articles on the Nether- lands tend to be more negative (40.1%). However, still 45.9% of the Ahold articles on the Neth- erlands are positive. Ahold articles on Belgium are positive in 59.5% of cases (negative in 26.2%) as most journalist believe ‘Albert Heijn’ stands a chance in the Belgian retail market.

3.1.7 Analysis of Colruyt’s Media Presence

3.1.7.1 Quantity of Articles

Most Colruyt articles were found in Belgian Newspapers (72.9% of all 636 articles on Colruyt). Particularly Het Laatste Nieuws (12.9% of all articles), De Standaard (12.0%), Het Nieuwsblad (12.0%) and La Libre Belgique (11.8%) write on Colruyt. Only Belgian and Dutch Financial and Investment Publications write on Colruyt: De Tijd (8.2% of all 636 articles on Colruyt), L’Echo (2.5%), Het Financieele Dagblad (1.7%) and NRC Handelsblad (0.2%) (Total: 12.6%). Only Belgian Retail Magazine Gondola writes on Colruyt (1.1% of all 636 articles). Finally, only Newswires Agentschap Belga (9.5%) and Reuters (2.2%) write on Colruyt.

Only 1.6% of all Colruyt articles were found in Digital Media; only 0.3% in Dutch Newspapers. None were found in U.S. Newspapers.

3.1.7.2 Tone of Voice

The tone of voice on Colruyt is extremely positive (66.1% of all 636 articles), with 20.6% in a neutral tone of voice and only 12.9% negative. Especially Retail Magazine Gondola is positive (6 of its 7 Colruyt articles). Newswires are also positive on Colruyt (78.4% of their 74 articles). Fi- nancial and Investment Publications are positive in 65.0% of their 80 articles. De Tijd (71.2% of their 52 articles) and L’Echo (68.8% of 16 articles) are the most positive. Belgian Regional and

National Newspapers are positive in 64.2% of their 462 articles. De Standaard (25.0% of 76 articles), Het Laatste Nieuws (22.1% of 82 articles), Het Belang van Limburg (4 of 19 articles) and De Morgen (20.0% of 25 articles) are the most negative Belgian Newspapers. Other Belgian Newspapers are not at all negative on Colruyt.

3.1.7.3 Topics

87 or 13.7% of all 636 articles on Colruyt is on CR. Media writing a lot on Colruyt’s CR-policy are Het Financieele Dagblad (3 of its 11 articles), Digital Medium Just Food (2 of 10 articles), De Morgen (20.0% of 25 articles), Newswire Agentschap Belga (18.3% of 60 articles) and La Libre Belgique (17.3% of 75 articles). Retail Magazines, Dutch and U.S. Newspapers do not write on Colruyt’s CR. Most of the 87 Colruyt articles on CR are in a positive tone of voice (66.3%) while very few are negative (12.9%). De Standaard writes negatively in 6 of its 11 Colruyt articles on CR. Just Food is negative in 1 out of its 2 articles on Colruyt’s CR policy.

Industry

With 58.9% of all 636 Colruyt articles on Industry the attention for the topic is above the sector’s average of 50.3%. The only Retail Magazine writing on Colruyt, Gondola, has 7 out of its 7 Colruyt articles on In- dustry. Belgian Newspapers dedicate 62.6% of their 462 Colruyt articles to Industry, particularly La Dernière Heure (12 of 15 articles), Het Nieuwsblad (77.6% of 75 articles) and Het Belang van Limburg (14 of 19 articles). The tone of voice concerning Industry is in line with the general tone of voice for Colruyt with 66.3% of the 374 Colruyt articles on Industry being positive, 20.8% neutral and 12.9% negative.

Management, Executive profile

In line with Colruyt’s policy to hide its top management, only 3.0% of all 636 articles on Colruyt are on Executive profiles. With 14.3% of its 7 articles, Retail Magazine Gondola is well above that average. Dutch and U.S. Newspapers do not write on Colruyt’s management profiles. News on Colruyt’s managers is positive in 16 of all 19 articles, and negative in none.

Mergers & Acquisitions

Although Colruyt is only present in Belgium and France, the group also tried to venture into the Netherlands. Despite this, only 4.9% of all 636 articles on Colruyt is on M&A. Retail Magazines, Dutch and U.S. Newspapers do not write on M&A at all. The 31 articles on Colruyt’s M&A are either positive (67.7%) or neutral (32.3%).

Results

Only 19.7% of all 636 articles on Colruyt is on Results, which is mainly caused by Dutch newspapers lowering the average by not writing on Results (in none of their articles). Despite the fact that they often write on Delhaize Group and Ahold Results (24.1% and 29.2% of their articles on Delhaize Group and Ahold respectively), Belgian newspapers too, do not write a lot on Colruyt’s Results (16.4% of their 264 articles on Colruyt). Especially Het Nieuwsblad does not often write on Results (9.2% of its 75 articles). With 9 of its 16 articles on Results, L’Echo amplifies the Financial and Investment Publications average of 31.3% of 80 articles on Results. De Tijd dedicates 26.9% of its 52 articles to Results; Het Financieele Dagblad 2 of 11 articles. Almost ¾ of the 125 articles on Colruyt’s Results are positive (72.0%); 16.8% is neutral.

On average, 71 or 11.2% of all 636 Colruyt articles is on Shares. Both Retail and Digital magazines do not care about Shares (0 of their 7 and 10 articles respectively). Financial and Invest- ment Publications write on Shares in 13.8% of their 80 Colruyt articles and especially L’Echo (3 of its 16 articles). Belgian newspapers are curious about the Colruyt share as well; they dedicate 11.2% of their 462 articles to it. However, Het Belang van Limburg and De Gazet van Antwerpen are not interested (0 of 19 articles and 2.6% of 39 articles respectively). News on the Colruyt share is mostly positive (64.8%) or neutral (19.7%), based on 71 articles.

3.1.7.4 Segments

52.8% of the 636 articles on Colruyt deal with matter strictly related to Belgium, while 5.7% of all Colruyt articles are about France.

The 36 Articles on Colruyt in France are mainly positive (66.7%) or neutral (19.4%). The 335 articles on Colruyt in Belgium are positive in 62.5% of cases and neutral in 22.3% of cases.

3.1.8 Analysis of Carrefour’s Media Presence

3.1.8.1 Quantity of Articles

Most of the articles on Carrefour in our corpus were attested in Belgian Newspapers (60.6% of all 90423 articles on Carrefour). It’s mainly the Walloon newspapers that are responsible for this: La Dernière Heure (16.6% of all 904 Carrefour articles), La Libre Belgique (14.9%) and Le Soir (13.8%). Newswires account for 17.9% of the Carrefour articles, which is almost only because of Reuters (11.5% of all Carrefour articles); runner-up newswire Agentschap Belga is responsible for 4.9% of the articles on Carrefour.

23 N.B: all article numbers were mathematically constructed by weighing the total 710 Carrefour articles. This was done to match the April 1, 2009 – May 15, 2010 period.

Not one of the Dutch and U.S. Newspapers in our selection of media writes on Carrefour.

3.1.8.2 Tone of Voice

Media are mainly negative (41.4%) or neutral (37.8%) on Carrefour. Financial and Investment Publications are the most negative (57.7% of their 99 articles) and least positive (18.0%). They are followed by the Belgian Newspapers who took side of the striking Belgian Carrefour employees (42.8% of their 547 articles are negative, while only 19.3% is positive).

Retail magazines are the most positive on Carrefour (4 of their 9 articles) and Digital Media are most neutral (54.4% of their 87 articles).

When we compare individual media, we see that De Tijd – with 73.3% of its 38 articles – is most negative in its articles on Carrefour, followed by De Standaard (69.6% of its 29 articles) and ANP-Reuters (3 of its 4 articles).

3.1.8.3 Topics

Since we considered articles on the layoff of Belgian employees and the Belgian unions’ strikes as belonging to CR, the percentage of articles on CR is quite high for Carrefour: 22.4%. Not sur- prisingly, Belgian Newspapers devote the most attention to this as 30.2% of their 547 articles is on CR (especially the Walloon newspapers La Dernière Heure (36.4% of its 150 articles), Le Soir (35.7% of its 124 articles) and La Libre Belgique (31.1% of its 134 articles). Retail magazines do not write on Carrefour’s CR policy.

As indicated, a lot of articles on CR were related to the Belgian union strikes. We see that 68.5% of the 202 Carrefour CR articles are in a negative tone of voice. Only 12.0% is positive and 19.5% is neutral.

Industry

Again, Industry appears in most of all 904 Carrefour articles (66.9%). Retail Magazines Gondola and Progressive Grocer both dedicate all of their 6 and 3 articles respectively to Industry related news. All Belgian Newspapers write a lot on Industry as well (78.4% of their 547 articles). Also Newswire Agentschap Belga writes on Carrefour’s Industry news (71.4% of its 45 articles). Digi- tal Media Just Food and Morning Newsbeat write the least on Industry (35.6% and 30.4% of their 57 and 29 articles respectively). For Industry too, news on Carrefour is negative as well (41.7% of all 605 articles on Industry). 20.2% is positive.

Management, Executive profile

Management profiles are present in 7.6% of all 904 articles on Carrefour. With 13.2% of all their 87 articles, Digital Media feature most articles on Executive profiles. Financial and Investment Publications follow with 11.5% of their 99 articles as a group, although only three of them have articles on Executives: The Times (UK) (2 of its 4 articles), The Wall Street Journal (21.7% of its 29 articles) and De Tijd (10.1% of its 38 articles). Retail magazines do not write on Carrefour’s executives. Most of the 69 articles on Carrefour Management are negative (42.1%) or neutral (34.2%).

Mergers & Acquisitions

Of all 904 Carrefour articles, 84 or 9.3% is on M&A. With 36.8% of their 87 articles, Digital Me- dia are far above that average. Reuters (18.3% of its 104 articles) is the only Newswire (11.8% of their 162 articles as a group) writing on Carrefour’s M&A. Financial and Investment Publications (9.0% of their 99 articles), Het Financieele Dagblad (3 of its 9 articles) and L’Echo (3 of its 15 articles) write on M&A as well. Belgian Newspapers and Retail Magazines do not (4.4% of their 547 articles and 0 of their 9 articles respectively). The grand majority of the 84 articles on Carrefour’s M&A is neutral (62.0%). A fifth is positive (20.0%) or negative (18.0%).

Results

With 201 or 22.2% of all 904 articles on Results, they are again a great part of media attention. Logically, Financial and Investment Publications (35.9% of their 99 articles) and Newswires (26.8% of their 162 articles) write more than other media on Results. Especially Het Financieele Dagblad (6 of its 9 articles), Associated Press (5 of its 9 articles) and The Wall Street Journal (34.8% of its 29 articles) write on Carrefour’s Results.

Belgian Newspapers, as a group dedicate 19.1% of their 547 articles to Results. Het Belang van Limburg (4 of its 13 articles), De Morgen (5 of its 19 articles), De Gazet van Antwerpen (3 of its 10 articles) and Het Laatste Nieuws (24.1% of its 37 articles) are above that average. Only Het Nieuwsblad (8.7% of 29 articles) is far below it. Gondola is the only Retail Magazine writing on Carrefour’s Results in 1 of its 6 articles. Reporting on Carrefour’s Results is mostly negative (57.4% of 201 articles on Results) or neutral (29.8%).

All media categories as a whole dedicate 6.2% of their 904 articles to Shares. Newswire Reuters writes the most on Shares with 20.7% of its 104 articles. Together with Agentschap Belga (only 2.9% of its 45 articles), Newswires as a group write more on Shares than any other media category (14.2% of their 162 articles).

Financial and Investment Publications write on Shares too (9.0% of their 99 articles as a group), although only Het Financieele Dagblad (1 of 9 articles), L’Echo (3 of 15 articles) and The Wall Street Journal (17.4% of 29 articles) do. Except for La Libre Belgique (7.6% of its 135 articles) and La Dernière Heure (5.9% of 150 articles), no other Belgian Regional or National Newspaper dedicates attention to the Carrefour share. The 56 articles on Shares are mostly neutral (46.4%) or positive (32.1%).

3.1.8.4 Segments

Because of a high amount of Belgian newspapers in our selection, most of the Carrefour articles are on Belgium (60.9% of all 904 articles). 13.8% of all Carrefour articles are on the segment Rest of the World (mostly Southern America). 6.1% of all articles are on the historical market France.

The media writing the most on France are Newswire Associated Press (2 of its 9 Carrefour articles) and Digital Medium Just Food (22.2% of its 57 articles). The Wall Street Journal (13.0% of its 29 articles) and Het Financieele Dagblad (1 of its 9 articles) write on France as well.

News on Carrefour in Belgium is obviously found in Belgian Newspapers (83.3% of their 547 articles); mostly in De Gazet van Antwerpen (9 of its 10 articles) and the least in Het Laatste Nieuws (75.9% of its 37 articles). All 6 Gondola Carrefour articles are on Belgium. Financial and Investment Publications dedicate 39.7% of their 99 articles to Belgium, mainly through De Tijd (80.0% of its 38 articles) and Het Financieele Dagblad (5 of its 9 articles). Agentschap Belga is the one of the few Newswires to write on Belgium (82.9% of its 45 articles). Reuters is the only other Newswire mentioning Belgium (4.8% of its 104 articles).

Digital Media almost not write on Belgium (7.4%) of 87 articles. But on the other hand, they do write a lot on the segment Rest of the World (Digital Media: 54.4% of their 87 articles). News- wires (23.6% of 162 articles) and Financial and Investment Publications (18.0% of 99 articles) follow. Retail Magazines (0 of 9 articles) and Belgian Newspapers (4.0% of 547 articles) do not.

News on France is neutral in 48.2% of 904 cases (positive and negative in 25.9% each). Obvious- ly, more than half of all articles on Belgium is negative (52.4% of 547 articles). A third is neutral (32.5%) and 15.1% is positive. News on the Rest of the World is either neutral (39.0%), positive (31.7%) or negative (29.3%).

3.1.9 Analysis of Wal-Mart’s Media Presence

This analysis of Wal-Mart’s media presence is based on 1,699 articles24.

3.1.9.1 Quantity of Articles

Most articles on Wal-Mart can be found in 5 Newswires (40.9% of all the 1,699 articles on Wal- Mart) and 10 Financial and Investment Publications (32.4%). Digital Media are responsible for 13.5% of all Wal-Mart articles. Remarkably, U.S. Newspapers only account for 5.5% of all articles on Wal-Mart in our corpus. Other media writing on Wal-Mart are Retail Magazines (5.5%), 4 Belgian (1.9%) and 1 Dutch Newspapers (0.3%).

The top three of all individual media writing on Wal-Mart is Associated Press (21.7%), Bloom- berg Money (18.4%) and The Wall Street Journal (14.6%). Some media not writing on Wal-Mart are Reuters, Sarasota-Herald Tribune, The Fayetteville Observer and Winston-Salem Journal (all 0 articles).

3.1.9.2 Tone of Voice

Reporting on Wal-Mart is mostly positive (47.3%) or neutral (32.4%). 20.3% of all articles on Wal-Mart is in a negative tone of voice.

Based on 33 articles on Wal-Mart in Belgian Newspapers, this media category seems to write the most positive on Wal-Mart (57.1% is positive). Retail Magazines are positive in 55.0% of their 93 articles; Newswires in 51.7% of their 695 articles; and Financial and Investment Publications in 44.9% of their 551 articles.

U.S. Newspapers and Digital Media are mostly neutral on Wal-Mart (55.0% and 40.8% of their 93 and 229 articles respectively). Although Belgian newspapers are the most positive on Wal-Mart, they are also the most negative of all media categories (28.6% of their 33 articles). Runner-up are the Financial and Invest- ment Publications with 25.4% of their 551 articles on Wal-Mart in a negative tone of voice. Both Progressive Grocer (67.0% of its 28 articles) and The Times (UK) (57.6% of its 33 articles) are positive on Wal-Mart. De Tijd (5 of its 9 articles) and The Boston Globe (45.4% of its 51 articles) are most negative on Wal-Mart.

3.1.9.3 Topics

With 20.3% or 345 of the total 1,699 Wal-Mart articles being on CR, this percentage is slightly above the overall average. One media category particularly interested in Wal-Mart’s CR are the Belgian Newspapers with 71.4% of their 33 articles on Corporate Responsibility.

24 N.B: all article numbers were mathematically constructed by weighing the total 364 Wal-Mart articles. This was done to match the April 1, 2009 – May 15, 2010 period

Retail Magazines and U.S. Newspapers write on CR as well (35.0% and 30.0% of their articles; both have 93 articles each). Financial and Investment Publications only dedicate 7.6% of their 551 articles to CR.

In general, media consider Wal-Mart’s CR policy as positive (48.7% of all 345 articles on CR is positive). However, a considerable 31.1% of the 345 articles on Wal-Mart’s CR is negative.

Industry

Again, Industry is the most written-on topic in our selection, with 817 or 48.1% of all 1,699 Wal- Mart articles. Especially U.S. Newspapers write on Industry (in 80.0% of their 93 articles), followed by Retail Magazines (55.0% of their 93 articles). Belgian Newspapers (42.9% of their 33 articles), Newswires (43.6% of their 695 articles) and Financial and Investment Publications (46.6% of their 551 articles) write the least on Industry.

The Washington Post, Northwest Florida Daily News, Tampa Tribune, The Sun-News, The Virgi- nian Pilot, De Telegraaf, De Standaard, Het Belang van Limburg all dedicate all of their articles to Industry (100% of their articles).

News on Industry is positive (44.6% of all 817 articles on Wal-Mart’s Industry) or neutral (38.3%).

Management, Executive profile

Media dedicate 98 or 5.8% of their 1,699 articles to Wal-Mart Executive profiles. With 8.2% of their 229 articles, Digital Media dedicate the most attention to Management, followed by Newswires (7.4% of their 695 articles), Retail Magazines (5.0% of their 93 articles) and Financial and Investment Publications (4.2% of their 551 articles). Belgian, Dutch and U.S. Newspapers do not write on Wal-Mart’s managers (0.0% of their 33, 5 and 93 articles each).

Individual media writing on Executive profiles a lot are Barron’s (11.5% of its 121 articles), Just Food (10.0% of its 93 articles) and Bloomberg Money (9.0% of its 313 articles).

News on Wal-Mart executives is mostly neutral (61.9% of all 98 articles on Wal-Mart executives) or negative (23.8%).

Mergers & Acquisitions

Only 42 or 2.5% of all 1,699 Wal-Mart articles is on M&A. Retail Magazines and Belgian, Dutch and U.S. Newspapers do not write on M&A (0.0% each). Other media dedicate 4.1% (of 229 Digital Media articles), 3.4% (of 695 Newswire articles) and 1.7% (of 551 Financial and Invest- ment Publications articles).

News on M&A is mainly positive (55.6% of the 42 articles on Wal-Mart’s M&A) or neutral (33.3%).

Results

About one third of all articles on Wal-Mart deals on Results (532 or 31.3% of 1,699 articles). Again, Financial and Investment Publications (39.8% of their 551 articles) and Newswires (30.9% of their 695 articles) are above this average; especially The New York Times (62.5% of its 37 articles). They are followed by Digital Media (26.5% of their 229 articles) and U.S. Newspapers (25.0% of their 93 articles).

Belgian Newspapers (14.3% of their 33 articles), Retail Magazines (10.0% of their 93 articles) and Dutch Newspapers (none of their 5 articles) do not write that often on Wal-Mart’s Results.

Wal-Mart was one of the winners in the crisis aftermath. 57.0% of all 532 articles on Results are positive; 21.9% is neutral.

201 or 11.8% of all 1,699 Wal-Mart articles are on Shares. Logically, Financial and Investment Publications (18.6% of their 551 articles) and Newswires (11.4% of their 695 articles) are interested in Shares. This is also true for U.S. Newspapers (10.0% of their 93 articles) Salisbury Post (5 of its 19 articles) and The Virginian Pilot (20.0% of its 23 articles). Other media, except for Digital Media (4.1% of their 229 articles), do not write on the Wal-Mart share.

News on Shares is positive (62.8% of all 201 articles on the Wal-Mart share) or neutral (25.6%).

3.1.9.4 Segments

News on Wal-Mart is slightly less than half of the articles (55.8% of 1,699 articles) not specifically on a particular segment. 36.8% of the Wal-Mart articles is on the U.S., 19.0% is on the Rest of the World.

News specifically on the U.S. is neutral (40.3%) or positive (39.6%). News specifically on the Rest of the World is positive (44.9%) or neutral (30.4%).

3.1.10 Analysis of Harris Teeter’s Media Presence

The analysis of Harris Teeter’s media presence is based on 133 articles.

3.1.10.1 Quantity of Articles

As we expected, a great part of the 133 Harris Teeter articles are generated by U.S. Newspapers (35.3% of all articles on Harris Teeter), especially The Virginian Pilot (15.0%) and the Winstom- Salem Journal (7.5%). Also, Retail Magazines (30.1%) write on Harris Teeter, especially Super- market News (24.1%) and Progressive Grocer (6.0%). Digital Medium Morning Newsbeat is responsible for 14.3% of all the Harris Teeter articles; Financial and Investment publication The Washington Post for 8.3%.

Only Newswires Associated Press (6.0%) and Reuters (0.8%) write on Harris Teeter. Other media almost not write on Harris Teeter. From all Dutch and Belgian Newspapers, only De Morgen and De Standaard both have 1 article on Harris Teeter (0.8% of all Harris Teeter articles each).

3.1.10.2 Tone of Voice

More than half of all 133 Harris Teeter articles is positive (57.1%). A small third is neutral (29.3%). Financial and Investment Publications, Retail Magazines and U.S. Newspapers are the most positive (9 of their 14 articles, 62.5% of 40 articles and 59.6% of 47 articles). Especially progressive Grocer (6 of its 8 articles), The Washington Post (8 of its 11 articles), The Charlotte Observ- er (6 of its 9 articles), The Virginian Pilot (60.0% of 20 articles) and Supermarket News (59.4% of 32 articles) are positive. Digital Media are positive as well (47.6% of their 21 articles) and are the least negative of all media categories (only 4.8% of their articles). Newswires are the most negative (in 2 of their 9 articles).

3.1.10.3 Topics

23.3% of all 133 articles on Harris Teeter are on CR. Especially Retail Magazines (32.5% of their 40 articles) write on CR. Supermarket News dedicates 34.4% of its 32 articles to CR, Progressive grocer 2 of its 8. Belgian Newspapers do not write on Harris Teeter’s CR.

Other categories are not coherent. The Washington Post is the only Financial and Investment Publication writing on CR (4 of its 11 articles). The Salisbury Post has 5 of its 6 articles on CR; The Virginian Pilot 20.0% of its 20 articles and Winstom-Salem Journal 2 of its 10 articles, The Char- lotte Observer 1 of 9, other U.S. Newspapers other have no articles on Harris Teeter. Associated Press is the only Newswire writing on CR for Harris Teeter (1 of its 8 articles).

An astonishing 90.3% of all 31 CR articles on Harris Teeter are positive, with only 6.5% neutral and 3.2% negative.

Industry

More than half of all 133 articles on Harris Teeter is on Industry (55.6%). Media writing the most on Industry relating to Harris Teeter are Newswires (7 of their 9 articles) and U.S. Newspapers (70.2% of their 47 articles), although this average is due to the high percentage in only some of the U.S. Newspapers in our selection. Winston-Salem Journal writes on Industry in 8 of its 10 articles, The Virginian Pilot in 80.0% of its 20 articles and The Charlotte Observer in 6 of 9 articles. The Salisbury Post only has 1 of its 9 Harris Teeter articles on Industry. Other U.S. News- papers do not write on Harris Teeter.

In the group of Financial and Investment Publications, only The Washington Post (7 of its 11 articles) write on Industry concerning Harris Teeter.

Progressive Grocer dedicates 5 of its 8 Harris Teeter articles to Industry, Supermarket News only 28.13% of its 32 articles, Gondola none. Digital Media have 47.6% of their 21 Harris Teeter articles on Industry.

Harris Teeter news on Industry is mainly positive (59.5% of all 74 articles on Harris Teeter’s In- dustry) or neutral (27.0%).

Management, Executive profiles

Only 3 (2.3%) of all 133 Harris Teeter articles is on Executive profiles. Only Supermarket News (2 articles or 6.25% of its 32 Harris Teeter articles) and Morning Newsbeat (1 of its 19 articles) write on Harris Teeter’s management. 2 out of 3 articles are neutral, 1 article is positive.

Mergers & Acquisitions

11 or 8.3% of all 133 Harris Teeter articles is on M&A. Media writing on Harris Teeter’s M&A are Morning Newsbeat (4 of its 19 articles), Supermarket News (18.8% of 32 articles) and The Char- lotte Observer (1 of 9 articles). No other media write on Harris Teeter’s M&A. 7 out of 11 articles on Harris Teeter’s M&A are neutral (63.6%), 3 are positive (27.3%) and 1 is negative (9.1%).

Results

20 of all 133 Harris Teeter articles is on Results (15.04%). The only Financial and Investment Publication writing on Harris Teeter results is De Tijd (in its only article on Harris Teeter). Also De Morgen dedicates its only Harris Teeter article to Results. Both Just Food articles on Harris Teeter are on Results as well.

Supermarket News has 28.1% of its 32 Harris Teeter articles on Results; The Charlotte Observer 22.2% of its 9 articles, Morning Newsbeat 15.8% of its 19 articles, Associated Press 12.5% of 8 its articles, The Virginian Pilot 5.0% of its 20 articles. Other media do not write on Harris Teeter results. 8 out of 20 articles on Results are negative (40.0%), 7 are positive (35.0%), 5 are neutral (25.0%).

Harris Teeter is owned by Ruddick Corporation which is enlisted on the NYSE (RDK). 4 of the 133 Harris Teeter articles are on Shares (3.0%). Only Associated Press writes on it in 1 of its 8 articles. 3 out of 32 articles in Supermarket News are on Shares (9.4%).

3 out of 4 articles on Shares are positive (75.0%), 1 is neutral (25.0%).

3.1.11 Checklist

As a conclusion of our analyses, we will discuss our main findings in the form of some key action points that need to be taken by the Delhaize Group Investor Relations & External Communica- tions department if they wish to establish their media goals.

In General, compared to its competitors, Delhaize Group does not get enough attention from the following media in table 3.3. It is advised to build better relations with these media and their journalists. A list of key journalist can be found in attachment 2.

Table 3.3: Media (categories) not giving enough attention in general to Delhaize Group, compared to its competitors

 Financial and Investment Publications like o Barron’s o HP/De Tijd (Dutch) o NRC Handelsblad o The Boston Globe o The New York Times o The Times (UK) o The Washington Post  Newswires  Dutch Newspapers  U.S. Regional Newspapers

Concerning CR, relations can be improved with a list of certain media and journalists (table 3.4) – either because they write positively about CR but not on Delhaize Group’s CR; or because they write negatively about Delhaize Group’s CR. For more details, cf. attachment 2.

Table 3.4: Contacts to be improved concerning CR

 Winkel R. (Het Financieele Dagblad)  Gondola  Het Nieuwsblad  La Dernière Heure  Just Food  Newswires  Financial and Investment Publications

In Belgium, it is difficult to beat Colruyt’s position as the text book example of having an efficient retail Industry strategy. It is advised, however, to work on this. Delhaize Group should promote its business strategies better so that they become a point of reference for journalists.

The following media do not write enough about Delhaize Group’s Industry, compared to its competitors: Progressive Grocer, the Newswires, the Financial and Investment Publications

Generally, Delhaize Group executives get enough attention, maybe except from Newswires, Dutch newspapers and Financial and Investment Publications. Table 3.5 gives an overview of people generally writing positively on retail executives but that do not often write on Delhaize Group managers; or that write negatively on Delhaize Group executives. For more information, cf. attachment 2.

Table 3.5: Contacts to be improved concerning Executive profiles

 Bernard Stephen, D’Innocenzio Anne, Gambrell Jon, Kinetz Erika, Metz Rachel, Pylas Pan, Skid- more Sarah, Tsai Catherine (Associated Press)  Geller Martinne, Maestri Nicole, Potter Mark (Reuters)  Mentink Anouk (Algemeen Dagblad)  De Telegraaf  Mebius F., Winkel R., Rolvink Franka, Smit R. (Het Financieele Dagblad)  Robert Reich (NRC Handelsblad)

Concerning M&A, and eye should be kept on Gondola as they tend to write negatively on Delhaize Group M&A.

Concerning Results, the media in table 3.6 should write more or more positive on Delhaize Group results.

Table 3.5: Contacts to be improved concerning Delhaize Group results

 U.S. Regional Newspapers (except for Charlotte Observer)  L’Echo  Het Nieuwsblad  Het Laatste Nieuws (Verschueren Sonja)  La Dernière Heure  Algemeen Dagblad

As we already said, they Delhaize Group share should be promoted to U.S. Newspapers, but also to Retail Magazines Gondola, Progressive Grocer and Supermarket News.

Concerning the Delhaize Group segments, Gondola should be made to also write on the Delhaize Group’s U.S. activities. Belgian Newspapers should write more on Delhaize Group’s U.S. activities.

3.2 Second Case: Investigation of Opportunities to use Social Media for Investor Relations Purposes by Delhaize Group

3.2.1 Introduction

Next to the analysis of traditional media, research was also performed to how the Delhaize Group Investor Relations & External Communications department can start using social media. Since the emergence and democratization of Web 2.0, the media landscape has drastically changed – also for investor relations. Although not fully established for the retail sector, we can see that some Delhaize Group peers (retailers or not) have already started to use social media for IR.

In the following paragraphs we will give an overview of the use of Social Media by different competitors and other (Bel20) companies. Also, a description of some steps that need to be taken for an implementation of social media into the IR&EC department will be described.

3.2.2 Competitors and other Bel20 Companies already using Social Media.

3.2.2.1 Wal-Mart

Competitor Wal-Mart started tweeting with www.twitter.com/walmartnews since January 13, 2010. The account is used on a daily basis; mainly for tweeting on CR but also on Industry related news like Strategy and when relevant on Results. This account is followed by 1,740 people25 and promoted on the website investors.walmartstores.com. To control the account, an application called CoTweet is used. Wal-Mart also has several other (local) Twitter accounts that are used for Marketing and Cus- tomer Relations. There are several Wal-Mart Facebook pages. One of the most popular pages has 1,192,609 people26 ‘liking’ it and posts on marketing. Almost every hour, somebody posts to the Wall. Wal-Mart also has a YouTube channel which exists since February 11, 2006 and is of course used for distributing commercials, but also features clips on CR. Every day, someone comments on a Wal-Mart video clip. An IR account for one of the competitors (other than Wal-Mart) could not be found.

3.2.2.2 Whole Foods Market

Although Whole Foods Market has no IR Twitter account, the company could be a textbook example of how to use social media as a retailer. www.twitter.com/WholeFoods is the main account and is also ‘Verified’, which means it is recognized by Twitter as the official account of the company. The ‘Verified Account’ label adds credibility to the account. The account is abun- dantly promoted on www.wholefoodsmarket.com. It is followed by 1,776,55727 (compare to

25 June 8, 2010 26 June 8, 2010 27 June 8, 2010

63 the Wal-Mart account) and is updated a couple of times per hour. Like Wal-Mart, CoTweet is used to control the account. Next to this main account, Whole Foods also tweets via www.twitter.com/WFMCheese, www.twitter.com/WineGuys, www.twitter.com/WholeRecipes and via 12 regional accounts like www.twitter.com/WholeFoodsATX for Austin, www.twitter.com/WholeFoodsCHI for Chicago and www.twitter.com/Whole_Foods_Van for Vancouver. Also, there are some 300 accounts for separate WFM stores which are officially recognized by WFM (but not by Twitter). On its website, WFM announces to “*c+heck back often - this list is growing fast!” Whole Foods also has several popular Facebook accounts, which are used for marketing purposes. The main account is used on a daily basis and has 256,221 people28 ‘liking’ it. Almost every hour, somebody posts something on the Whole Foods Wall. Whole Foods Market has a YouTube channel which it mainly uses for distributing cooking programs and clips on CR.

3.2.2.3 Carrefour

The corporate website www.carrefour.com does not mention any social media account. How- ever, there are a lot of Carrefour Twitter accounts. These seem to be created by local subsidiaries. Most tweet on marketing or CR. None of the Carrefour Twitter accounts tweet on IR. Carrefour has a Facebook Page which was created by a Jordan subsidiary but which is popular all over the world. It does not post itself, but a lot of the 19,109 people29 ‘liking’ it post to the Wall.

3.2.2.4 Harris Teeter

The account www.twitter.com/Harris_Teeter is being used by a private person. www.twitter. com/harristeeter last tweeted September 21st, 2009. www.twitter.com/teetertweets mostly tweets at least once a week on marketing and coupon actions. The Harris Teeter’s Facebook account is promoted on www.harristeeter.com and is being used by Harris Teeter on a daily basis for marketing and coupon actions. Harris Teeter is owned by Ruddick Corporation which seemingly does not have any social media accounts. Harris Teeter uses its YouTube channel to distribute clips on cooking and CR.

3.2.2.5 Colruyt

Although competitor Colruyt Group has a Facebook Page it was last used by Colruyt Group itself on May 12, 2008 for a job opening. However, it does have a large group of 3,866 followers30 who post on the Page Wall on average 4 times per month. Although people do not post on IR, they mostly post concerning CR or Jobs and not, as could be expected, on marketing related matters. Colruyt seems to have a Twitter account (www.twitter.com/colruyt_be) but this only has 6 followers31 and no tweets.

28 May 31, 2010 29 June 8, 2010 30 June 8, 2010 31 June 8, 2010

3.2.2.6 Bel20 and other Companies

Although accounts for Bel20 companies like www.twitter.com/umicore, www.twitter.com/ucb, www.twitter.com/solvay, and also www.twitter.com/delhaizegroup are suspended, some Bel20 companies do use Twitter and Facebook – even for IR.

Bekaert has at least one Twitter account and one Facebook Page (www.twitter.com/bekaert). The Twitter account is mainly used to publish links to Press Releases on www.bekaert.com or to the Facebook Page. Tweets are in English and mainly concern Q or Y results. The Twitter account has 65 followers32 from all over the world. Some of their followers are small investors, partners (publishing agencies, HR agencies), other companies (KBC Group). The Bekaert HR De- partment has a separate Twitter account. The Bekaert Facebook page is not used that often and is only ‘liked’ by 9 people33 who have never posted anything on the Page Wall. Furthermore, Bekaert was the first Bel20 company to dedicate an independent website to its Annual Report (annualreport.bekaert.com), next to www.bekaert.com. By this, the company takes the online user-friendly version of the annual report a step further. The different chapters form the building blocks of the navigation bar. Also, there is a built-in search function. Users can print the entire annual report, but can also generate a (printable) pdf à la carte. Of course the annual report website has the obligatory ‘share’ buttons, to share the report via Twitter, Facebook and other Social Media34. www.kbc.com, the corporate website of KBC Groep promotes www.twitter.com/kbc_group on its homepage. The account has 277 followers35 and mainly tweets in English and Dutch on Re- sults, M&A, and CR. The account mainly features links to www.kbc.com and pdfs on the multi- mediafiles.kbcgroup.eu-site. The Twitter account is followed by regular people all over the world and also by Investment Media. KBC Group does not make actively use of a Facebook Page. It does have a mobile website m.kbc.com.

Another company making use of Twitter for IR is French Lafarge, which also tweets on M&A, CR and jobs. www.twitter.com/LafargeGroup tweets on a daily basis, in English and often links to the company website. The account has 447 followers36. Lafarge also has an active Facebook Page to which it posts almost daily on several topics. 3,878 people37 ‘like’ Lafarge on Facebook. A lot of people post on the Page Wall.

If Whole Foods Markets is the social media textbook example among retailers, Cisco can be considered as a corporate social media pioneer in general. Although Cisco only puts links to its RSS feeds, Twitter and Facebook accounts on homepage www.cisco.com, the Cisco Facebook Page links surfers to a myriad of other social media accounts. Several other Facebook Pages, several Twitter accounts, several blogs, two Flickr accounts and two Youtube channels. Cisco’s main Facebook Page has 59,215 people38 ‘liking’ it and posts daily on Industry and Management profiles.

32 May 26, 2010 33 May 26, 2010 34 http://www.reference.be/news/Bekaert-jaarverslag.html, June 5, 2010 35 May 26, 2010 36 May 26, 2010 37 May 26, 2010 38 June 8, 2010

65 www.twitter.com/CiscoSystems is ‘Verified’ (like WholeFoodsMarket’s account), has 29,489 followers39 and tweets almost every hour via the TweetDeck application. Cisco mainly tweets on Industry related matters and Management profiles and links to SlideShare presentations and its blog among others. Cisco has some 30 other Twitter Accounts but no clear IR account. Nevertheless, Cisco has a ‘Financial’ playlist on its YouTube channel which features video clips of CFO Frank Calderoni and CEO John Chambers discussing the quarterly Results. Allegedly, Chambers prefers video to text because of his dyslexy40.

3.2.3 Social Media Action Points

3.2.3.1 Facebook

With over 400 million users41, more than 20%42 of all Internet users have a Facebook account. This means Facebook is an extremely popular medium. Delhaize Group is already present on Facebook, but in a much unstructured way. Recently, Facebook automatically started creating ‘Pages’ on the basis of content generated by Facebook users. There are several “Delhaize Group” ‘Pages’ that are named “Delhaize”. Also, different “Delhaize Group” ‘Pages’ are liked by different people, which dilutes the potential power of a Facebook ‘Page’. Delhaize Group has no control over these ‘Pages’.

During my internship, I created a ‘Page’ for Delhaize Group and I am the page’s ‘admin’. I have handed over the ‘admin’ rights to a Delhaize Group manager. Delhaize Group should try to integrate all the unstructured “Delhaize Group” ‘Pages’ into this single “Delhaize Group” ‘Page’. I already took some first steps by signing up with his personal Facebook account and offering Facebook to help update some of the “Delhaize Group” ‘Pages’. Some improvements have already been made: 1. suggesting the ‘Page’ created by Fabrice as the official ‘Page’ 2. adding the link to the Delhaize Group-website to the Company and Organization pages (Not yet executed by Facebook) 3. adding the link to the Wikipedia article to a ‘Company page’ (there already was a link to the Wikipedia article on an ‘Organization page’) Up until now I have not yet been contacted by Facebook. It is preferred that a Delhaize Group official (with @delhaizegroup.com-adress) contacts Facebook.

Afterwards, the ‘Page’ should be used as a fully fledged communication channel. This means the page should, for example, feature a link to the Delhaize Group website, each time a Press Release is issued. Also, via the ‘Page’, Delhaize Group should actively try to interact with its stakeholders by ‘liking’ their comments, ‘commenting’ their actions and ‘replying’ to their mes- sages. Doing this, Delhaize Group should respect the Social Media ‘netiquette’ by accepting the concept of user generated content and the highly democratizing aspect of Social Media. If possible, the Delhaize Group website and its ‘Page’ should be integrated by API. Also, additional ‘Tabs’ should be inserted in the Delhaize Group Facebook ‘Page’ (the Delhaize Group Twitter-

39 June 8, 2010 40 http://blogs.alianzo.com/socialnetworks/2009/01/10/videoblogs-at-cisco/ (June 8, 2010) 41 http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics, June 15, 2010 42 http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm, June 15, 2010

66 feed, executive’s photos,…) Finally, the Delhaize Group website should link to Facebook. ‘Like’ buttons can be placed on the Delhaize Group website’s pages, but also under every press release. If visitors click these buttons, a link to the website page will be placed on the user’s Face- book ‘Wall’, sharing the information with all his ‘Friends’.

3.2.3.2 Twitter

Twitter can be used as an efficient news alert channel. A lot of the Twitter usage is on mobile devices. Also, Twitter is easily accessible on mobile phones. Since Delhaize Group has no mobile website, people visit the Twitter account instead.

Delhaize Group is not present on Twitter. In fact, www.twitter.com/DehaizeGroup is suspended. However, the procedure to claim the DelhaizeGroup Twitter account has been started. Afterwards, the procedure to have www.twitter.com/DelhaizeGroup have the ‘Verified Ac- count’-label should be started.

The Delhaize Group Twitter account should be used as a fully fledged communication channel by tweeting news concerning Delhaize Group and links to Press Releases. If possible the Delha- ize Group website, or at least its press release page and the Twitter account should be integrated by API. Delhaize Group should interact with other Twitter users, by making use of ‘@’, by making use of hashtags, by making use of Bit.ly or another link shortener, by making use of a Twitter application like TweetDeck or CoTweet, by tracking and analyzing clicks on links, by analyzing its audience.

Finally, the Delhaize Group Investor Relations department should link its Twitter account to services like StockTwits, a web-based tool that gathers all investor-related tweets and puts them into a single feed line. Promoting the StockTwits account should enable Delhaize Group to reach more a qualified audience than the average Twitter user.

If Delhaize Group wants to use Twitter, or other social media, as a disclosure platform, they should update their disclosure policy and publish it on their website.

3.2.3.3 LinkedIn

Already today, 465 people43 are following Delhaize Group on LinkedIn. However, the company LinkedIn-profile is only 25% complete. Somebody with a @delhaizegroup.com-adress needs to sign in and update the company information like adding a company description, a company logo and other specialties. Also, a ‘Follow us on LinkedIn’-button should be placed on the Delhaize Group website.

3.2.3.4 Youtube

Delhaize Group is not present on Youtube. However, for the Delhaize Group website a movie will be made, featuring the Delhaize Group CEO Pierre-Olivier Beckers. Also, a teleconference room was installed at the Delhaize Group Anderlecht headquarters. Maybe these commodities

43 June 16, 2010

67 offer Delhaize Group the possibility to start recording videocasts of the quarterly updates, in addition to the audiocasts. This is already done by the Cisco executives. Thirdly, the 2007 Media Plan said Delhaize Group received the request for TV footage of stores. The plan said Delhaize Group intended to create a tape with up to date film material of stores and supply chains around the world. If this footage exists, it could also be placed on the You- tube channel.

3.2.3.5 Wikipedia

There is a ‘Delhaize Group’ article on the English, French, and German Wikipedia. However, all articles need to be updated. Both fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhaize_Group and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhaize_Group, for example, still state Delhaize Group is present in 8 countries. The German Wikipedia has no article for Delhaize (Belgium); http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhaize directs to the Delhaize Group-article.

The Dutch Wikipedia automatically directs to the Delhaize (Belgium) article when searching for ‘Delhaize Groep’ (or ‘Delhaize Group’). During my internship, I have created a separate ‘Delha- ize Groep’ lemma (nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhaize_Groep) but this needs to be expanded.

When searching for ‘Skupina Delhaize’ or ‘Delhaize Group’, the Czech Wikipedia automatically directs to the Delvita page. Delvita is still portrayed as belonging to the Delhaize Group.

3.2.3.6 Foursquare

A ‘venue’ was created for the Delhaize Group HQ. People visiting the Marie Curie HQ and who have a Foursquare account can now ‘check in’ and tell each other they visited the office.

3.2.3.7 Share or Join

A new Delhaize Group website is under construction and will be launched soon. It is proposed that the website will incorporate links to Social Media. It is not decided whether this will be a ‘Share’ or ‘Join’ button. According to other (corporate) websites like www.wholefoodsmarket.com, www.lafarge.fr and www.kbc.com a ‘join’ button should be placed on a specific location in the site’s navigation bar.

Although none of the sites mentioned here feature this, it could be useful to install a ‘share’ button at some relevant places (for example at the bottom of each press release) so that visitors can either e-mail or tweet the link of the article in question, or post it to their Facebook Wall. This phenomenon can be seen on several Newspaper’s websites (e.g. www.tijd.be). Ser- vices to ‘share’ can be found on www.addthis.com.

3.3 Critical Evaluation of the Internship Projects and their Execution

3.3.1 Delhaize Group

In this paragraph, we will briefly evaluate the internship projects and their execution. Since my main task during my internship at Delhaize Group was providing an analysis of the company and its competitor’s media coverage, I had not much time to do other things. Yet, I had the chance to do some research on social media in the retail business, to work on the Delhaize Group Gen- eral Shareholders meeting and to write the text for the Q1 2010 results, a press release, some speeches and the script of a movie which will be put on the new Delhaize Group website in Sep- tember, 2010.

Nevertheless, I still find it a pity that so much time was lost by screening the media and reading articles to fill the media database. This should have been done by an external media agency like Mediargus. However, in a sense it was useful to read all the articles on Delhaize Group and its competitors. I feel I am more aware about the business and have really learned something about the retail sector. Also, I liked working with the corpus. I was already used to analyzing data in an Excel-sheet from my Bachelor- and Masterpapers and an article in Bilingualism: Language and Cognition for which I analyzed reaction times to interlingual homographs44 so I was able to juggle the database in a way that amazed my Delhaize Group colleagues. For example, when VP IR & EC Geert Verellen got a telephone call from a journalist he did not know, I could track the person and see what he mostly writes about and if he writes positively or negatively about Delhaize Group before the telephone conversation was over. I am therefore confident that the work I did is useful to Delhaize Group too.

Another big project, next to the analysis of the media coverage, was the groundwork for the preparation of Delhaize Group’s social media strategy. Although I think social media will become more important for companies like Delhaize Group, I felt the Delhaize Group management is still very reluctant to try it – even if they did ask me to investigate it and formulate some action points. I hope my work could convince them to think about it and I’ll regularly check their progress in implementing their social media strategy. Since they do not have any in- house experience (none of the IR & EC managers have a Twitter account and only one has a Facebook account), I have offered them to keep in touch and said they could contact me for any consultancy concerning social media.

3.3.2 Porter Novelli

Because my internship at Porter Novelli is still running it is difficult to evaluate it. Up until now, working for PNBR5, the social media department, has been slightly disappointing. My main tasks consist of doing research (i.e. scanning the Internet for any social media presence of Por-

44 Hofman, F. (2008) De rol van frequentie bij de perceptie van homografen. Bachelorpaper, Universiteit Gent Hofman, F. (2009) Restricties of non-selectieve toegang tot het mentale lexicon. De rol van frequentie en woord- soort. Masterpaper, Universiteit Gent Baten, K., Loeys, T. & Hofman, F. (In press) Cross-lingual activation in bilingual sentence processing: the role of word class meaning. Accepted for publication in Bilingualism: Language & Cognition

69 ter Novelli clients). Often, I have to ask for feedback myself and when it is given it is not exten- sive. This is also because the social media accountants are often abroad for work.

On the other hand, I have also assisted at a project for Equate and attended an Insight Session for Sandoz. Especially the work for Sandoz on biopharmaceuticals and biosimilars gave me a good insight in the working of Porter Novelli as a communication agency with a big pharmaceutical portfolio.

4. Conclusion

In this chapter, I do not want to give a specific conclusion concerning the cases, but rather want to give a general description of what I have learned by developing, working on and discussing the cases in this Masterpaper. These conclusions must be seen on both a professional and personal level and also try to refer to the advanced master’s training Meertalige Bedrijfscommuni- catie and its effect on the internships at Delhaize Group and Porter Novelli.

2.1 On a Professional Level

Since the 2008-2009 financial crisis I have been interested in financial markets. I had already been learning as an autodidact about different types of securities and how they are traded and what effect they have on a company’s communication obligations. Also, the classes by Mrs. Astrid Vandendaele on Business English dealt on several aspects of financial trading. One of the main reasons to do an internship at the Investor Relations & External Communications department of Delhaize Group was to expand my knowledge on this subject.

I will not go into providing a definition of shares and options (the main securities related to Delhaize Group) but I will describe some things I did not know before coming to Delhaize Group: American Depository Receipts (ADRs), arbitrage trading and the ‘squeeze out’. Also, I thought the work I did for the media coverage analyses has greatly expanded my knowledge of the retail sector and even opened up my chances for working at Delhaize Belgium and maybe later for Delhaize Group. Working on the General Shareholders meeting was a great experience and I consider it to be a big asset when I’ll start working for the Investor Relations department of an enlisted company. Finally, I am happy that I acquired some new insights into how social media could be used for corporate instead of marketing matters.

American Depositary Receipts

While Delhaize Group shares are enlisted on EuroNext Brussels (DELB), there are also American Depositary Receipts which are listed on the New York Stock Exchange (DEG) and represent one Delhaize Group ordinary share.

American Depository Receipts represent ownership in a non-U.S. company that is traded on a U.S. financial market (in Delhaize Group’s case the NYSE). This way, they enable U.S. investors to buy shares from foreign companies on national exchanges, which greatly reduces normally elevated international broker fees. Also, ADRs are traded in U.S. dollar, pay dividends in U.S. dollar and give the right to obtain the foreign shares they represent. However, this is generally never done by U.S. investors as ADRs were created to make foreign share trading more easily. Whereas Delhaize Group ADRs represent one Delhaize Group ordinary share, other ADRs can also represent only a fraction of a share or a group of shares of the foreign company.

The Delhaize Group American Depository Receipts go back to the American Food Town Stores, which was taken over by Delhaize in 1974-1975 and which was renamed into Food Lion in 1983. A lot of Americans like to invest in companies they know and which are located close to them, therefore Delhaize Group continued offering U.S. investors a way to invest in Food Lion via Del- haize Group’s ADRs.

Arbitrage

Because Delhaize Group is both enlisted on EuroNext Brussels and the NYSE, this allows for arbitrage. Arbitrage refers to a situation where a commodity, this can be a share, is traded on two or more markets at different prices. This situation makes it possible to take advantage of the price difference by buying the commodity on one market and selling it again on the other.

Squeeze out

As described in 1.2.2 Delhaize Group Share Ownership, Delhaize Group will ‘squeeze out’ the ‘Alfa Beta’ minority shareholders which hold the 9.1% of shares not belonging to Delhaize Group.

The principle of ‘squeeze out’ was installed by the government, who wanted to make it possible for majority shareholders that hold a certain percentage of a company’s shares to buy the shares held by minority shareholders. Shareholders in the minority shareholder group are ob- liged by legislation to sell their shares to the majority shareholder group once it owns 95.0% of all shares. Also, it is possible to swap shares of the subsidiary company for shares of the holding company.

A ‘squeeze out’ is especially useful when a company is listed on an exchange market. By accu- mulating 100% of the shares, the majority shareholder group can delist the company from the exchange market. This means that the obligations due to enlisting, like additional publications and more restrictive legislative procedures, no longer have to be fulfilled which allows for high cost-cutting.

Although Delhaize Group only owns 90.9% of the shares (instead of 95%) they are able to ‘squeeze out’ the ‘Alfa Beta’ minority shareholders, who hold 9.1% of the company’s shares. They can do this because they have an agreement with the capital market commission of the country where the shares are listed and with 4.1% of the minority shareholders. In this case, a tender offer was launched in June 2010 via Dutch Delhaize Group subsidiary ‘Delned’ and since July 8, 2010, the squeeze out was approved by the capital market commission. The minority shareholders will be paid €35.7 per share instead of being given Delhaize Group shares. ‘Alfa Beta’ will be delisted from the Athens Exchange.

General Shareholders Meeting and quarterly update Q1 2010

I found it particularly interesting to organize and attend the Delhaize Group General Sharehold- ers meeting. It was a welcome break during the continual work on the media coverage analyses. I think it is good to have established some practical event-management skills during my otherwise rather in-office based internship – especially because it was the first time Delhaize Group used electronic voting boxes for the meeting’s ballots.

Also, the copywriting I did for the Q1 2010 results update (cf. attachment 3) and the CEO and chairman’s speeches during the Shareholder Meeting (cf. attachment 5 and 6) were a good way to accumulate insight into Delhaize Group as an enlisted company.

Social Media

Next to the analyses of Delhaize Group and its competitors’ media coverage, the biggest part of my internship at Delhaize Group consisted of doing research whether social media could be used for investor relations.

In the previous paragraphs, I have already elaborated on the stance of investor relations in the use of social media by retail companies and social media investor relations platforms such as StockTwits. Here, I would like to sketch an interesting finding that could be useful for Delhaize Belgium and other Delhaize Group banners (some U.S. banners like ‘Bloom’ and ‘Hannaford’ have already started to use it). Competitors like Whole Foods mainly use social media for distributing coupons. For example, if you go to the cash register desk of a supermarket with you mobile phone and prove you follow ‘Whole Foods’ on Twitter, you get a discount.

Likewise, the new social media platform Foursquare may be used for marketing purposes by creating badges for regular shoppers and offering them promotions.

Internal Communication

As I described in 1.5 Corporate Identity, a lot of U.S. banners feel very independently from each other and from the Brussels corporate office. Although Pierre-Olivier Beckers (the Delhaize Group CEO who is also CEO of Delhaize America) is trying to change this, communication between Delhaize America and the Brussels communication department is still rather difficult.

For example, Mrs. Barbera Hoppenbrouwers, Communications Manager at the Investor Rela- tions & External Communications department at Delhaize Group confided me that working with Delhaize America, especially Food Lion LLC, is incredibly difficult. It seems as if the U.S. banners are afraid to share information and feel they are constantly under corporate control. Also, they are reluctant to adopt Group communication paradigms. I experienced this myself when I was trying to set up a central press calendar – an overview of all press and communication related events by all Delhaize Group banners; a project which eventually failed because there was no cooperation from Food Lion LLC.

This conflict convinced me that internal communication, also between subsidiaries, in an international company like Delhaize Group is extremely important, especially when the company’s headquarters is based in a small country like Belgium and has subsidiaries in countries like the Unites States. A company should work on allowing everyone to have access to all information and discourage secrecy, especially if it supports personal agendas.

2.2 On a Personal Level

With this psychological and sociological problem concerning international internal communication we are moving towards a more personal interpretation of my internship(s).

French

First, I would like to point out that, in my opinion, French is not as important as I had expected; at least not on a professional level (and at least not for the work I had to do) – not even at Del-

73 haize Group and certainly not at Porter Novelli. Both at Delhaize Group and Porter Novelli, all professional communication that I had to do was in English. However, I became aware that knowledge of French is extremely important for interpersonal contacts with French speaking colleagues. I noticed that contacts during lunch or coffee breaks follow an interesting linguistic pattern. Often, two people with a different mother tongue speak each other’s language at one another for courtesy reasons but after a while they shift towards the language of the person doing most of the talking (i.e. mostly the person talking about himself).

I am aware of the fact that, although French might not always be as important for professional reasons (for example in the case of Porter Novelli, having most clients with English as their lin- gua franca), it is extremely important for interpersonal relations when working in Brussels. Be- cause of this, I intend to keep working on my French which is not as good as I would want it to be.

Networking

The importance of French for interpersonal relations brings us to ‘networking’; a very popular word nowadays, but also very important indeed. While working at Delhaize Group I noticed that if you want to succeed in anything on a professional level, you have to know the right people. This became very clear when overhearing conversations during lunch breaks, when people from different Delhaize Group departments were, in a way, informally ‘doing business’.

Also, I got to know my internship mentor at Porter Novelli, Danny Devriendt via a lunch before his guest lecture at Rommelaere for the MTB students and via Christian Remon, an MTB student who was already doing an internship at Porter Novelli.

Furthermore, Porter Novelli is a company with many clients in the pharmaceutical sector and I noticed that people were a lot more interested in me when I said that I have a girlfriend who is studying pharmaceutical sciences. Also, they already made it very clear that if I was to start working for the communication department of a company in their business range I should contact them for business proposals.

All these things convinced me even more of the fact that networking is essential and I decided to test my networking capabilities when I asked VP IR & EC Geert Verellen if we could have a conversation on job possibilities at Delhaize. Although he could not offer me anything at Delha- ize Group, he immediately brought me into contact with Director of Communication Hans Mi- chiels at Delhaize Belgium (with promising perspectives...)

2.3 Link to the MTB program

Because I met Mrs. Barbera Hoppenbrouwers during the visit at the Delhaize Belgium DC Fresh II in Zellik, for me, the most important link between my internship at Delhaize Group and the MTB program are of course the company visits. Also, because I was in the team that prepared the Delhaize Group visit, I already knew a lot about the company. In a way, the MTB company visits have had a very important impact on my future professional life.

Also, the Economics colleges by prof. dr. Koen Schoors, the Introduction to accountancy by prof. dr. Johan Christiaens and the Business Law colleges by prof. dr. Cathy Van Acker were very interesting because they often allowed me to amaze the people at Delhaize Group with my knowledge about the economy, securities, accountancy and (Belgian) company legislation about disclosure, subsidiaries and mergers. As I already mentioned, I also found the Business English colleges by Astrid Vandendaele to be very interesting and useful because they refreshed my knowledge about different securities and introduced me to M&A.

However, I did not know that much about financial communication as such. Although there was a guest lecture about financial communication (by Peter Otten, Hill and Knowlton), this was interesting but slightly disappointing. Because general knowledge by other MTB students about securities and stock exchange was so narrow, Mr. Otten had to spent the entire time slot on his introduction and was not able to get to the actual financial communication part of his lecture.

Therefore, I would like to use this final paragraph as a call for more focus on this subject, which is in fact the driver of our economy and is even closer to us than we might expect. Pensions for example, one of the current themes nowadays and of greater interest to youngsters than ever, are funded by securities. Even in spite of the Economics colleges by prof. dr. Koen Schoors and Business English colleges by Astrid Vandendaele, a lot of MTB students are not fully aware of the workings of security exchanges. Maybe – as Minister of State Frank Vandenbroucke proposed – students should be educated about this already even in secondary education.

5. Bibliography

Websites

 Asean Affairs, Indonesia Retail Market: Matahari, Hero buoyant despite high inflation, July 28, 2008 (July 11, 2010): https://www.storesonlinepro.com/store/1772737/page/matahari_hero_buoyant_despi te_high_inflation?sitecookie=9c2897752e8f829133cfabe2a30aa61c  Colruyt (July 11, 2010): http://www.colruyt.be  Colruyt Group (July 11, 2010): http://www.colruytgroup.com  Costco Wholesale (July 7 and 11, 2010): http://www.costco.com  Delhaize Group (April to July 2010): http://www.delhaizegroup.com  IBM on CR (June 30, 2010): http://www.ibm.com/ibm/ibmgives/  Kroger Co. (July 7, 2010): http://www.kroger.com  Lidl Belgium (July 11, 2010: http://www.lidl.be  Ruddick Corporation (July 11, 2010): http://www.ruddickcorp.com  Supermarket News’ SN’s Top 75 Retailers for 2009 (July 7, 2010): http://supermarketnews.com/profiles/top75/2009-top-75/  Supervalu Inc. (July 10, 2010): http://www.supervalu.com  Wal-Mart (July 7, 2010): http://walmartstores.com/AboutUs/

Newspapers

 Anon. (October 16, 2009) Carrefour ziet omzet krimpen in derde kwartaal, De Tijd  Anon. (July 15, 2010) Delhaize to squeeze-out minority shareholders, Just-Food (online retail magazine)  Anon. (May 22, 2010) Staking zal weerslag hebben op budget sociaal plan, Agentschap Belga  De Smedt, S. (June 4, 2010) Ahold bevestigt plannen voor winkels in België, De Tijd  Keszei, N. & Evenepoel, K. (May 26, 2010) Carrefour ook in gesprek met Delhaize, De Tijd  Luysterman, P. (July 3, 2010) Champion heet in 2013 Carrefour, De Tijd  MB (May 27, 2010) Delhaize praat met Carrefour, De Gazet van Antwerpen  Mussche, E. (September 16, 2009), 5 Vragen voor de grote 5, Het Nieuwsblad

Annual Reports and other Publications

 Costco Wholesale Corp. Annual Report, 2009  Delhaize Group Annual Report, 2009  Delhaize Group Factbook (Classified), 2009  Deloitte, Global powers of retailing 2010, 2010  Kroger Co. Annual Report, 2009  Safeway Annual Report, 2009

 Safeway Fact Book, 2008  Supervalu Annual Report, 2010  Wal-Mart Annual Report, 2009

Academic articles

 Beatty, R. P. & Ritter, J.R. (1986) Investment banking, reputation, and underpricing of initial public offerings. Journal of Financial Economics, 15, 213-323  Carroll, C. E. & McCombs, M. (2003) Agenda-setting effects of business news on the public’s images and opinions about major corporations. Corporate Reputation Review, 16(1), 36–46  Deephouse, D.L. (2000) Media reputation as a strategic resource: An integration of masscommunication and resource-based theories. Journal of Management, 26, 1091– 1112  De Ridder, J. (1994) Van tekst naar informatie. Amsterdam: dissertation, University of Amsterdam  Dowling, G.R. (1986) Managing your corporate images. Industrial Marketing Manage- ment, 15, 109-115  Fombrun, C. & Shanley, M. (1990) What’s in a name? Reputation Building and Corpo- rate Strategy, Academy of Management Journal, 33, 2, 233-358  Fombrun, C.J. (1996) Reputation: Realizing value from the corporate image. Boston: MA, Harvard Business School Press.  Kleinnijenhuis, J., Oegema, D., De Ridder, J. A. & Bos, H. (1995) De democratie op drift: Een evaluatie van de verkiezingscampagne van 1994. Amsterdam: University Press  Kleinnijenhuis, J. & De Ridder, J. (1997) Effects of strategic news framing on party prefe- rences. In Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science As- sociation  Kleinnijenhuis, J., Oegema, D., De Ridder, J., Van Hoof, A. & Vliegenthart, R. (2003) De puinhopen in het nieuws: De rol van de media bij de Tweede Kamer verkiezingen van 2002. Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer  Kleinnijenhuis, J., Scholten, O., Van Atteveldt, W., Van Hoof, A., Krouwel, A., Oegema, D., De Ridder, J., Ruigrok, N. & Takens, J. (2007a) Nederland vijfstromenland: De rol van media en stemwijzers bij de verkiezingen van 2006. Amsterdam: BertBakker  Kleinnijenhuis, J., Van Hoof, A., Oegema, D., & De Ridder, J. (2007b). A test of rivaling approaches to explain news effects: News on issue positions of parties, real-world developments, support and criticism and success and failure. Journal of Communication, 57, 2, 366–384  Lazarsfeld, P. F., Berelson, B. & Gaudet, H. (1944) The people’s choice: How the voter makes up his mind in a presidential campaign, New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce.  Meijer, M.M. & Kleinnijenhuis, J. (2006) News and corporate reputation: Empirical findings from the Netherlands, Public Relations Review, 32, 341-348  Milgrom, P. & Roberts, J. (1986) Relying on the information of interested parties. Rand Journal of Economics, 17, 18-32

 Osgood, C. E. & Tannenbaum, P. H. (1955) The principle of congruity in the prediction of attitude change. Psychological Review, 62, 42–55  Shah, D.V., Watts, M.D, Domke, D. & Fan, D.P. (2002) News framing and cueing of issue regimes. Public Opinion Quarterly, 66, 339–370  Van Atteveldt, W., Kleinnijenhuis, J., Ruigrok, N., Schlobach, S. (2008a) Good News or Bad News? Conducting Sentiment Analysis on Dutch Text to Distinguish Between Posi- tive and Negative Relations. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 5, 1, 73-94  Van Atteveldt, W. (2008b) Semantic Network Analysis, Techniques for Extracting, Representing and Querying Media Content. Charleston, SC: BookSurge Publishers  Van Cuilenburg, J.J., Kleinnijenhuis, J. & De Ridder, J. (1986) Towards a graph theory of journalistic texts. European Journal of Communication, 1, 65–96  Wartick, S. L. (1992). The relationship between intense media exposure and change in corporate reputation. Business & Society, 31, 33–49

6. Attachments

6.1 Delhaize Group

Digital

Because some attachments are only relevant if they can be seen and modified on-screen, we have provided them using Google Documents. The documents can be viewed and downloaded via the following links. In case there are any problems, please contact fabricehof- [email protected].

1. Media Database: http://bit.ly/d6mR7F

2. List of Authors: http://bit.ly/bsv4Gi

On Paper

For additional attachments, illustrating my work at Delhaize Group and Porter Novelli, please cf. the following pages.

At Delhaize Group, I helped writing the text for the conference call for the first quarter results of 2010. I also contributed to the script which sets out the Ordinary General Shareholders Meet- ing and the speeches given by Pierre-Olivier Beckers and Georges Jacobs during that Sharehold- er Meeting. Afterwards, a press release was written about the Dividend approval.

3. Investor’s Conference Call Delhaize Group, Q1 2010 Results

4. Script Ordinary General Shareholders Meeting, May 27, 2010

5. Speech by Pierre-Olivier Beckers, President and CEO at the Ordinary General Shareholders Meeting, May 27, 2010

6. Speech by Georges Jacobs, Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Ordinary Gen- eral Shareholders Meeting, May 27, 2010

7. Delhaize Group Shareholders Approve 2009 Dividend

6.2 Porter Novelli

8. Press Release Compex

Compex is one of the new clients of Porter Novelli. A social media campaign was set up and for the launch I wrote a press release

9. Format social media landscape, NL, Penske

For Penske, an international logistics company, I analyzed their and their competitor’s and stakeholders’ presence in Belgian social media. I also provided some general social media trends for Belgium.

10. Journalism and Social Media Survey

PNBR5, the social media lab of Porter Novelli Brussels, wants to run a survey on journalists and their social media use. I set out the first lines of this survey.

INVESTORS’ CONFERENCE CALL DELHAIZE GROUP FIRST QUARTER 2010 RESULTS

Time of call: 3 p.m. CET – 9 a.m. EST, Wednesday May 5, 2010

Portland, Maine (U.S.– Hannaford Board Room - +1 207-885-3180): Pierre-Olivier Beckers, Stéfan Descheemaeker, Ron Hodge, Rick Anicetti, Geert Verellen, Amy Shue.

Brussels (Belgium – Erasmus Board Room - +32 2 520 4487): Michel Eeckhout, Guy Elewaut, Aurélie Bultynck, Barbera Hoppenbrouwers

Organizer: Verizon

Dial-in numbers: U.S.: +1.210.795.0624 U.K.: +44.20.7108.6390 Pass code: Delhaize

» Introduction (Conference Call Company)

Welcome to Delhaize Group’s first quarter 2010 earnings conference call.

I now hand over the conference call to Geert Verellen, Vice President of Investor Relations and External Communications of Delhaize Group.

» Geert Verellen

Thank you operator. Good afternoon everyone in Europe, good morning in the U.S. Welcome to the conference call concerning Delhaize Group’s results for the first quarter of 2010.

This presentation contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those stated in any forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are detailed from time to time in reports filed by the Company with the SEC. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this presentation. Delhaize Group assumes no obligation to update the information contained in this presentation.

An audio webcast of this conference call will be available on the Company’s website. Delhaize Group reserves all rights to the content of this webcast and this webcast can not be recorded or otherwise reproduced without the prior express written consent of Delhaize Group.

Today, we have the following people with us: - Pierre-Olivier Beckers, CEO Delhaize Group - Stéfan Descheemaeker, CFO Delhaize Group - Rick Anicetti, CEO Food Lion - Ron Hodge, CEO Hannaford

During this call we will first look back on our performance in the first quarter of 2010, followed by comments on operations and strategy. Afterwards, we will take questions. For those unable to stay on the call, or who wish to listen to it again, a replay will be available on the Company’s website.

I now turn to Pierre-Olivier Beckers for an introduction of our first quarter results.

» Pierre-Olivier Beckers

Thank you, Geert. Hello everyone and thank you for joining our conference call.

In this quarter our banners effectively started to execute the new price and cost savings strategy of our “New Game Plan”. We are pleased with the encouraging results. Our revenues increased by 1.7% at identical exchange rates, despite a very tough comparison with last year’s highly inflationary environment and the still challenging economic times.

In light of the “New Game Plan”, all our banners continued their price investments to achieve value leadership in their respective markets. Food Lion and Delhaize Belgium even introduced new price strategies since the beginning of the year. In the U.S., this resulted in positively evolv- ing volume trends. Delhaize Belgium generated outstanding results which lead to strong weekly market share gains for 15 months in a row now, with a faster growth pace compared to the market itself.

During the first quarter, we saw important decreases in our operating expenses and we will continue with additional cost savings not only at operating company level, but also at regional level. This approach supports our operating profit evolution as proven by the stability of our operating margin at 4.9% for this quarter, at identical rates.

Our planned additional store openings in our newer operations and in our existing markets will amend/improve our revenues in the second half of the year. Meanwhile, we are certain of our strategic initiatives related to growth, enabled by our solid balance sheet, leading brands and market positions, excellence in execution and strong management teams and therefore confirm our guidance of 2 to 5 % operating profit growth.

Stéfan will now provide you with some additional color on the first quarter results and I will come back later to give you a brief update on some current strategic initiatives. Stéfan …

» Stéfan Descheemaeker

Thank you, Pierre-Olivier. Welcome everyone.

» First Quarter 2010 Income Statement

Except stated otherwise, I will review our figures based on actual exchange rates. In this quarter, the U.S. dollar has strengthened on average by 14.9% against the euro compared to the first quarter of last year.

As Pierre-Olivier just indicated, Delhaize Group continued to grow revenues despite the challenging economic environment. Revenue growth amounted to 13.2%, or 3% at identical exchange rates, and our operating companies on both sides of the Atlantic have demonstrated resilient comparable store sales growth, with 2% in the U.S. and 1.7% in Belgium. In Greece, Alfa-Beta increased revenues again by more than 10%, particularly due to the Plus Hellas acquisition. In Romania and Indonesia, our Rest of the World segment, revenues grew by 36.4% at identical exchange rates.

During the quarter, our operating companies increased their promotional activity to improve their attractiveness to consumers in these difficult economic times and in reaction to the very competitive environment. Today we are on price strategy at all our companies and we plan to stay very competitive in prices in the coming quarters.

Our U.S. revenues increased by 2%, supported by solid comparable store sales growth of 2%, adjusted for the negative impact of 60bps due to the different timing of Easter compared to 2008. Our three U.S. operating companies continue to record increases in private brand revenues compared to the same quarter last year. In these more difficult economic times, the loyalty that our customers have shown to our brands is reflected in a stable or increasing number of visits everywhere in our U.S. operations. On the other hand, we continue to see consumers being pressured and more careful in their spending. This isreflected by the decrease in the number of items purchased per visit.

In Belgium, total revenues increased by 2.1% in the first quarter. Delhaize Belgium revenues would have increased by 2.9% if adjusted for the conversions of Cash Fresh stores to affiliates and the end of the wholesale contract with the health and beauty chain Di. Belgian comparable store sales grew by 1.7%. In Belgium, we are particularly pleased with our market share increase since the beginning of the year.

Revenue growth at Alfa-Beta in Greece was again strong at 10.8%, particularly driven by the acquisition of Plus Hellas. Alfa-Beta continued to record an increase in the number of customer transactions, and its market share grew during this quarter even when excluding the impact of Plus Hellas. Revenue growth in Ro- mania and Indonesia was excellent as a result of the expansion of the store network and supported by continued high retail inflation.

The gross margin for the Group increased to 26.1% of revenues. In fact, gross margin increased in each of our geographical segments, as a result of the continued increases in private brand revenues, ongoing ef- forts and initiatives to improve inventory results in the U.S., Belgium and Romania, lower transportation costs due to the decrease of fuel prices, more targeted price investments at Sweetbay and better buying conditions in Belgium thanks to our membership with AMS, the European buying group we joined in Janu- ary of this year.

Selling, general and administrative expenses amounted to 21.5% of revenues, which is an increase of 25 basis points at identical exchange rates due to the integration of the Plus Hellas and La Fourmi acquisitions, increased healthcare costs in the U.S., additional depreciation at Food Lion due to the store renewals last year, and higher utility expenses throughout the Group as a result of the increase in electricity rates. The EUR 100 million cost savings plans we announced a number of weeks ago for 2009 are on track and have enabled us to offset some of these cost pressures.

As a result of our higher gross margin, partially offset by an increase in SG&A, our operating profit increased by more than 20% and our operating margin was strong at 4.9% of revenues.

» Cash Flow

In the first quarter of this year, net cash provided by operating activities increased by 34% due to improvements in working capital at Alfa-Beta and more cash provided by accounts payable in the U.S. This was mainly the result of timing as the payment of year-end payables was included in the 53rd week of 2008. Capital expenditures decreased by 35% mainly due to lower spending in the U.S. as a result of lower store remodeling activity at Food Lion and lower planned investments in general. Delhaize Group generated EUR 270 million in free cash flow, a strong increase over last year as a result of higher profit, better working capital, lower capital expenditures, and the advance payment related to the Plus Hellas acquisition in 2008.

» 2010 Outlook

Our good first quarter results announced today, our plans to improve our cost structure by EUR 100 million and to generate EUR 50 million in working capital improvements this year, for which we are well on track, allow us to confirm our full-year guidance as issued on March 12th. We re- peat, as we said in March at the occasion of the issuance of earnings guidance, that the expected 2009 profit growth will be frontloaded in the first half of 2009.

I would like now to turn back to Pierre-Olivier to give you an update on our strategy and our operational initiatives.

» Pierre-Olivier Beckers

At the end of last year, we felt it was the right time to capitalize on our strengths and announced our “New Game Plan”, our comprehensive strategy to accelerate revenue and profit growth. In line with this plan, our operating companies executed additional cost savings and price investments. The results were successful as proven by our revenues increase and high operating margin. It is clear that our “New Game Plan” intensifies our ability to drive revenues in the longer term and adapt ourselves to the short-term challenges, a strategy that enabled us to attract millions of customers every day.

Food Lion started off with a new lower prices strategy, resetting the price of thousands of products. The banner strongly positions this commercial action in the market with TV commercials focusing on its “Low Prices Heritage”. As a result, Food Lion saw an important increase in items per transaction at the end of this quarter. Hannaford increased its levels of price investments which led to an increase in customer transactions and Sweetbay carried out targeted promotional

83 initiatives. The excellent results at Delhaize Belgium were driven by a strong commercial plan including a continued price focus that was again confirmed in a new price-cut campaign launched beginning of April. Delhaize Belgium’s price position is closer than ever to the price leader and the hard discounters in Belgium.

During many quarters now, we see that the “virtuous cycle of growth”, the result of the “Excel 2008-2010 plan” is working for Delhaize Belgium and is exemplary for all our other banners. The plan consists of strong cost management enabling price investments, which in turn form the basis for further revenue growth.

Efficiency gains are thus vital to realize our objective to become the value leader in each of our markets. Cost savings at the local level are important and have their effect as confirmed by the decrease in operating expenses with 21.3% at identical rates at the end of this quarter. Though, more important cost savings can only be realized when we become more nimble as an organization. This is why we formed “Delhaize America”. This new organisation offers centralised supporting services to our 7 banners in the U.S., while maintaining the unique and successful go-to- market strategies of each of the banners. Another regional efficiency project is the integration of all our U.S. supply chains into one master network, providing the distribution of goods to all our U.S. banners. In the first quarter, we concluded a year of work to achieve common master data, common hierarchy and unique store and distribution center numbers so that each item now is seen as one “Delhaize America” item. This achievement enables to leverage “Delhaize Amer- ica’s” collective size and negotiating strength. At the end of last year, we announced we had plans to reach EUR 300 million in additional annual gross SG&A savings by 2012, largely the result of such efficiencies at regional levels. Today we can say that we are on track to deliver on these plans.

We continued to cater to the needs and expectations of our customers, not only in price, but as well in value-added products and shopping experiences. We strongly believe that concept differ- entiation, the strategic lever that has strengthened our business as from the start, remains an important driver of top-line growth. Innovation, new assortments, health and wellness and corporate responsibility are therefore key-components of our “New Game Plan”. In this perspective, all our banners continued to extend their private brand assortments as they offer a very strong value proposition based on quality as well as on price. Also in this quarter we generated increased private brand revenues. In the field of health and wellness, our Guiding Stars nutritional information system, developed and licensed by Hannaford, has been sold to “Kings Super Markets” and is now offered in its 24 grocery stores.

Conclusion

Let me conclude. We feel confident about our “New Game Plan”, the engine enabling our Com- pany to become one of the fastest growing food retailers based on our solid plans to invest in prices and achieve value leadership in each market, while we continue to realize our operating profit guidance.

» Q&A

Led by Pierre-Olivier Beckers.

» Closing

» Geert Verellen

Thank you for participating in today’s conference call. A replay is available on the Company’s website. There you can also find the text with our prepared remarks. If you have additional questions, do not hesitate to contact our Investor Relations Department.

Delhaize Group will announce its second quarter results on Friday August 13, 2010.

Thank you and have a nice day.

Rue Osseghemstraat 53 B-1080 Brussels, Belgium www.delhaizegroup.com

ASSEMBLEE GENERALE ORDINAIRE DES ACTIONNAIRES DU 27 MAI 2010

GEWONE ALGEMENE VERGADERING DER AANDEELHOUDERS VAN 27 MEI 2010

General Meeting (slide DG 1) General Meeting (slide DG 1)

Nemen enkel plaats op het podium de Heren G. Jacobs de Hagen, Ne prennent place sur l'estrade que Messieurs G. Jacobs de Hagen, P.-O. Beckers en B. van der Straten Waillet. P.-O. Beckers et B. van der Straten Waillet.

De andere bestuurders, Stéfan Descheemaeker en de commissa- Les autres administrateurs, Stéfan Descheemaeker et le ris (Deloitte) nemen plaats op de eerste rij. commissaire (Deloitte) sont assis au premier rang.

Verwelkoming en inleiding Accueil et introduction

Dames en Heren, welkom op de Gewone Algemene Vergadering Mesdames et Messieurs, je vous souhaite la bienvenue à van Delhaize Groep NV. Ik verklaar de vergadering geopend. l'Assemblée Générale Ordinaire de la SA Groupe Delhaize. Je déclare la séance ouverte.

Vertalingen (slide DG 2) Traductions (slide DG 2)

U heeft bij het binnenkomen hoofdtelefoons ontvangen. Er zijn Vous avez reçu des écouteurs à l’entrée. Des traductions vers le vertalingen voorzien naar het Frans (kanaal 1), het Nederlands français (canal 1), néerlandais (canal 2) et anglais (canal 3) sont (kanaal 2) en het Engels (kanaal 3). prévues.

Mag ik u ook verzoeken om uw mobiele telefoons uit te zetten Puis-je également vous demander de bien vouloir couper vos zodat de vergadering niet verstoord wordt. Ik dank u bij voor- téléphones portables, afin de ne pas perturber le bon baat. déroulement de cette assemblée. D'avance je vous en remercie.

Ik stel Baudouin van der Straten Waillet aan om de functie van Je désigne Baudouin van der Straten Waillet pour remplir la Secretaris te vervullen en verzoek de vergadering te willen over- fonction de Secrétaire et je prie l'assemblée de bien vouloir gaan tot de aanduiding van twee stemopnemers. procéder à la désignation de deux scrutateurs.

Ik stel u Mevrouw Jacqueline Heggermont en de Heer Jean-Luc Je vous propose Madame Jacqueline Heggermont et Monsieur Vandebroek voor. Gaat de vergadering akkoord? Jean-Luc Vandebroek. L'assemblée est-elle d'accord?

Oui ? Je vous remercie. Ja? Ik dank u. J’invite les membres présents du Conseil d’Administration à Ik nodig de aanwezige leden van de Raad van Bestuur uit om het compléter le bureau. bureau te vervolledigen.

Laat mij ook de overige leden van de Raad van Bestuur voorstel- Je tiens aussi à vous présenter les autres membres du Conseil len. Naast mij zetelt de heer Pierre-Olivier Beckers, Afgevaardigd d'Administration. A mes côtés se trouve Monsieur Pierre-Olivier Bestuurder van de Groep. Beckers, Administrateur Délégué du Groupe.

Andere Bestuurders zitten op de eerste rij en zijn respectievelijk D’autres Administrateurs sont assis au premier rang, il s'agit Mevrouw Claire Babrowski, de heer François Cornélis, Graaf respectivement de Madame Claire Babrowski, de Monsieur 85

Arnoud de Pret, de heer Jacques de Vaucleroy, de heer Hugh François Cornélis, du Comte Arnoud de Pret, de Monsieur Jacques Farrington, Graaf Richard Goblet d’Alviella, de heer Bob Murray, de Vaucleroy, de Monsieur Hugh Farrington, du Comte Richard de heer Didier Smits, de heer Jack Stahl en Baron Luc Vansteen- Goblet d’Alviella, de Monsieur Bob Murray, de Monsieur Didier kiste. Smits, de Monsieur Jack Stahl et du Baron Luc Vansteenkiste.

Wij mogen ook enkele ereleden van onze Raad van Bestuur ver- Et je salue également la présence de certains membres honoraires welkomen, en voornamelijk de aanwijzigheid van onze erevoor- de notre Conseil d’Administration, en particulier la présence de zitters, de heer Frans Vreys, Ridder Guy Beckers en Baron de nos Présidents honoraires, Monsieur Frans Vreys, le Chevalier Guy Vaucleroy. Beckers et le Baron de Vaucleroy.

U zal eveneens vaststellen, dat de leden van het Executief Comi- Vous constaterez également que sont présents les membres du té en een aantal personeelsleden van onze vennootschap en van Comité Exécutif, du personnel de notre société et de firmes externe ondernemingen die de logistiek verzorgen aanwezig zijn. extérieures assurant un support logistique.

General Meeting (slide DG 3) General Meeting (slide DG 3)

Dames en Heren, de bijeenroepingen voor deze Gewone Alge- Mesdames, Messieurs, les convocations à la présente Assemblée mene Vergadering werden gedaan door aankondigingen ver- ont été faites par des annonces publiées en date du 27 avril 2010 schenen op 27 april 2010 in het Belgisch Staatsblad, in L’Echo en dans le Moniteur belge, L'Echo et De Tijd, et adressées par courrier De Tijd, en werden toegestuurd aan de aandeelhouders op naam aux actionnaires nominatifs, conformément au Code belge des overeenkomstig het Belgisch Wetboek van Vennootschappen. sociétés.

Een bewijsstuk van deze aankondigingen, alsmede een exem- Un justificatif de ces annonces, ainsi qu'un exemplaire de la lettre plaar van de oproepingsbrief gezonden aan de aandeelhouders de convocation adressée aux actionnaires nominatifs, sont op naam liggen op het bureau. déposés sur le bureau.

Ik verzoek de stemopnemers deze documenten te paraferen. J'invite les scrutateurs à parapher ces documents.

Dames en Heren, aangezien de volledige agenda bij de oproepin- Mesdames, Messieurs, l'ordre du jour ayant été joint aux gen werd gevoegd en in de media werd gepubliceerd, vraag ik u convocations et publié dans la presse, je vous demande de bien mij te willen ontslaan van de lezing van de volledige agenda. vouloir me dispenser de sa lecture dans son intégralité. Stemt de algemene vergadering ermee in dat ik niet de volledige L'assemblée est-elle d'accord ? agenda lees? Oui ? Je vous en remercie. Ja? Ik dank u.

Om deze vergadering bij te wonen, hebben de hier aanwezige of Pour assister à la présente assemblée, les actionnaires présents ou vertegenwoordigde aandeelhouders zich geschikt naar artikels représentés se sont conformés aux articles 31 et 32 des statuts. 31 en 32 van de statuten.

Ik verzoek de vergadering vast te stellen dat ze geldig is samen- J'invite l'assemblée à constater qu'elle est valablement constituée gesteld en bekwaam om te beraadslagen. Gaat de vergadering et apte à délibérer. L'assemblée est-elle d'accord ? akkoord? Oui ? Je vous en remercie. Ja? Ik dank u. Aux termes de l’article 36 des statuts, l’assemblée délibère Luidens artikel 36 van de statuten, beraadslaagt de vergadering valablement sur les points de l’ordre du jour quel que soit le geldig over de punten op de agenda ongeacht het aantal verte- nombre de titres représentés. genwoordigde aandelen. Pour être valablement prises, les résolutions sur les points de l’ordre Om geldig te worden aangenomen, dient de besluiten over de du jour doivent réunir une majorité simple des voix. punten op de agenda te worden goedgekeurd door een gewone meerderheid van de stemmen.

Ik bevestig dat alle economische en financiële inlichtingen wer- Je vous signale que les informations économiques et financières den doorgegeven aan de ondernemingsraad overeenkomstig ont été fournies au conseil d’entreprise conformément à l'article artikel 16 van het koninklijk besluit van 27 november 1973. Er 16 de l'arrêté royal du 27 novembre 1973. Il a été répondu aux werd geantwoord op alle vragen van de werknemersvertegen- questions posées par les représentants des travailleurs, et la woordigers en de toestand van de tewerkstelling in de onderne- situation concernant l'emploi dans l'entreprise a été exposée et ming werd uiteengezet en besproken. commentée.

De werknemersvertegenwoordigers hebben een verklaring op- Les représentants des travailleurs ont écrit une déclaration sur le gemaakt over de nieuwe organisatiestructuur van de supermark- nouveau modèle d’organisation du travail en supermarché chez ten bij Delhaize Belgïe. Deze verklaring werd ter uwer beschik- Delhaize Belgique. Cette déclaration a été mise à votre disposition king gelegd aan de ingang van de zaal. à l’entrée de la salle.

Ik vraag nu aan de Secretaris de lijst van de aanwezigen op te Je demande maintenant au Secrétaire de bien vouloir relever les nemen. De aanwezigheidslijst bevat, in bijlage, de volmachten présences. La liste des présences contient, en annexe, les van de aandeelhouders die zich hebben laten vertegenwoordi- procurations des actionnaires qui se sont fait représenter et les gen en de formulieren voor het stemmen per brief. formulaires de vote par correspondance.

PAUZE (Slide IML 1) PAUSE (Slide IML 1)

Zoals U op het scherm kan zien, vertegenwoordigen de op deze Comme vous le voyez sur l’écran, les actionnaires présents ou vergadering aanwezige of vertegenwoordigde aandeelhouders représentés à cette assemblée représentent samen _____ aandelen. Dat betekent dat ______procent ensemble _____ actions. Cela signifie que ______pour cent du vertegenwoordigd is van het totale uitgegeven aandelen. total des actions émises est représenté.

Ik verzoek de stemopnemers deze aanwezigheidslijst en de vol- Je demande aux scrutateurs de bien vouloir parapher cette liste machten te willen paraferen. des présences, ainsi que les procurations.

Ik stel u nu voor om de punten 1 tot 3 op de agenda, waarover Je vous propose à présent de commenter les points 1 à 3 de l’ordre de aandeelhouders niet dienen te stemmen, te becommentarië- du jour qui ne nécessitent pas de vote des actionnaires. ren.

Beheersverslag: agendapunt 1 (slide DG 4) Rapport de gestion: point 1 de l’ordre du jour (slide DG 4)

Het eerste punt van de agenda betreft de voorstelling van het Le premier point de l’ordre du jour concerne la présentation du beheersverslag van de Raad van Bestuur. rapport de gestion du Conseil d'Administration.

Een exemplaar van de statutaire jaarrekening, het verslag van de Un exemplaire des comptes annuels statutaires, du rapport de Raad van Bestuur over de statutaire jaarrekening, het verslag gestion du Conseil d’Administration sur les comptes annuels van de commissaris over de statutaire jaarrekening, en het ge- statutaires, du rapport du commissaire sur les comptes annuels consolideerde jaarverslag, waarvan het beheersverslag over de statutaires, et du rapport annuel comprenant le rapport de gestion geconsolideerde jaarrekening deel uitmaakt, werden gestuurd sur les comptes consolidés, ont été envoyés aux actionnaires naar de aandeelhouders op naam en aan de houders van effec- nominatifs et aux porteurs de titres qui ont accompli les formalités ten die tenminste zeven dagen vóór deze algemene vergadering pour assister à cette assemblée générale au moins sept jours avant de formaliteiten hebben vervuld om aan deze algemene verga- cette assemblée. Ces documents sont également disponibles à dering deel te nemen. Deze documenten zijn eveneens beschik- l’entrée de la salle et sur notre site internet. baar voor het binnenkomen in de zaal en op onze website.

In het persbericht dat op 11 maart 2010 is verschenen, werd Le communiqué de presse du 11 mars 2010 a d'ailleurs repris un overigens een kort verslag gegeven over de financiële resultaten résumé des résultats financiers de l’année 2009. van het boekjaar 2009. Dans ces conditions, je vous demande de me dispenser de la 87

Hiermee rekening houdend, zou ik u willen verzoeken het be- lecture du rapport de gestion. L'assemblée est-elle d'accord ? heersverslag niet te moeten voorlezen. Gaat de vergadering akkoord?

Ja? Dank u. Oui ? Merci.

Verslag van de commissaris: agendapunt 2 (slide DG 5) Rapport du commissaire: point 2 de l’ordre du jour (slide DG 5)

Met betrekking tot het tweede agendapunt vraag ik de commis- En ce qui concerne le point 2 de l’ordre du jour, j’invite le saris Deloitte, hier vertegenwoordigd door de heer Philip commissaire Deloitte, ici représenté par Monsieur Philip Maeyaert, Maeyaert, de conclusie van zijn verslag te willen voorlezen. à donner lecture des conclusions de son rapport.

PHILIP MAEYAERT LEEST DE CONCLUSIE VAN ZIJN VERSLAG. PHILIP MAEYAERT LIT LES CONCLUSIONS DE SON RAPPORT.

Dank u Mijnheer Maeyaert. Merci Monsieur Maeyaert.

Geconsolideerde jaarrekening: agendapunt 3 (slide DG 6) Comptes annuels consolidés : point 3 de l’ordre du jour (slide DG 6) Voor ik het woord verleen aan onze CEO en Voorzitter van het Avant de passer la parole à notre CEO et Président du Comité Executief Comité, de heer Pierre-Olivier Beckers, die dieper zal Exécutif, Monsieur Pierre-Olivier Beckers, qui vous parlera plus en ingaan op de strategie van Delhaize Groep en de vooruitzichten détail des résultats du premier trimestre de cette année 2010, de la voor dit jaar, zal ik u een overzicht geven van de resultaten van stratégie du Groupe Delhaize et des perspectives pour cette année, 2009. je vais vous donner un aperçu des résultats de l’année 2009.

Resultaat 2009 (slide DG 7) Résultats 2009 (slide DG 7)

SPEECH VAN DE HEER JACOBS DE HAGEN (slides DG 7 tot 17) DISCOURS DE MONSIEUR JACOBS DE HAGEN (slides DG 7 à 17)

Ik geef nu het woord aan onze CEO, de heer Pierre-Olivier Bec- Je passe maintenant la parole à notre CEO, Monsieur Pierre-Olivier kers. Beckers.

SPEECH VAN DE HEER BECKERS (slides DG 18 tot 47) DISCOURS DE MONSIEUR BECKERS (slides DG 18 à 42)

Georges, het woord is aan u. Georges, la parole est à toi.

VRAGEN (slide DG 48) QUESTIONS (slide DG 43)

En nu zou ik graag aan u, de aandeelhouders van onze onder- Avant de mettre aux voix les points repris à l’ordre du jour de neming, het woord geven. Voor wie een vraag wenst te stellen, l’Assemblée Générale, j’invite les actionnaires qui souhaiteraient zijn er mobiele microfoons ter beschikking. Het is noodzakelijk poser une question à le faire maintenant. Des micros portables deze te gebruiken voor een goed verloop van de vertaling van sont votre disposition. Il est impératif de les utiliser pour la bonne uw vraag in de verschillende talen. Ik wens ook nog te bena- marche de la traduction de votre question dans les différentes drukken dat enkel de houders van effecten die aandelen gede- langues. Je voudrais encore insister sur le fait que seuls les porteurs poneerd hebben vragen mogen stellen. Voor de overigen is er de titres qui ont déposé des titres peuvent poser des questions. Les voldoende tijd na de vergadering om hun vragen aan het ma- autres personnes disposeront d’assez de temps après l’assemblée nagement of de bestuurders te stellen tijdens de receptie die op pour poser leurs questions aux membres du management ou du deze vergadering zal volgen. Conseil d'Administration lors de la réception qui suivra cette assemblée. Tenslotte zou ik u ook willen vragen uw vragen te beperken tot de agendapunten van de Algemene Vergadering. Enfin, je vous demande de bien vouloir limiter vos questions aux points inscrits à l’ordre du jour de l’Assemblée Générale. Ik herinner u eraan dat u op geen enkel ander moment de gele- genheid zal krijgen om vragen te stellen en dat wanneer over de Je vous rappelle qu’il n’y aura pas d’autres moments pendant 88 resoluties zal gestemd worden, de aandeelhouders geen recht lesquels vous pourrez poser des questions et qu’au moment du zullen hebben om de wijze waarop zij gestemd hebben te recht- vote, les actionnaires n’auront plus le droit de justifier la manière vaardigen. dont ils auront voté.

[M. GEENEN [M. GEENEN

Dank u Mijnheer Geenen. Wij hebben uw bezorgdheden ge- Merci Monsieur Geenen. Nous avons entendu vos préoccupations. hoord. Ik stel echter wel vast dat deze geen betrekking hebben Je constate, cependant qu'elles ne concernent ni l'ordre du jour ni op de agenda of op onze vennootschap en bijgevolg kan ik uw notre société et par conséquent je ne puis accéder à votre vraag niet inwilligen.] demande.]

Zijn er andere vragen in verband met de agenda van de Algeme- Y a-t-il d'autres questions concernant l'ordre du jour de ne Vergadering ? l’Assemblée Générale?

STEMMING (Slide IML 2) VOTE (Slide IML 2)

Dames en Heren, u heeft bij het binnenkomen een stemkastje Mesdames et Messieurs, vous aurez remarqué que vous avez reçu en een smartkaart gekregen. Deze zullen u toelaten uw stem- un boîtier et une carte à puce quand vous êtes entrés dans la salle. men op een elektronische wijze uit te drukken. De volmachten Ils vont vous permettre d’exprimer vos votes de manière en de stemmingen per brief werden op voorhand ingevoerd en électronique. Les procurations et les votes par correspondance ont zullen automatisch opgeteld bij elke afrekening. été comptabilisés à l’avance et seront intégrés systématiquement Dit systeem is heel gemakkelijk in gebruik. Ik geef nu het woord dans chaque décompte. aan de Secretaris van de vergarding, de Heer Baudouin van der Ce système de vote électronique est très simple d’utilisation et je Straten Waillet, die u zal uitleggen hoe u moet stemmen. vais maintenant passer la parole au Secrétaire de l’assemblée, Baudouin van der Straten Waillet – slides IML 2 tot 8 Monsieur Baudouin van der Straten Waillet, pour qu’il vous explique comment voter. Georges Jacobs – (SLIDE IML 9): Ik stel voor om een stemtest te doen met de volgende vraag: moet Delhaize Groep haar logo Baudouin van der Straten Waillet – slides IML 2 à 8 veranderen van leeuw naar struisvogel? Georges Jacobs – (SLIDE IML 9) : Je vous propose maintenant de De stemming is open. faire un vote test avec la question suivante : le Groupe Delhaize doit-il remplacer son logo de lion en autruche ?

Le vote est ouvert. PAUZE

Heeft iedereen gestemd ? Ik dank U. De stemming is afgesloten. PAUSE Zoals U kan zien, worden de resultaten direct weergegeven op Est-ce que tout le monde a voté ? Je vous remercie. Le vote est het scherm. clôturé. Comme vous le voyez, les résultats s’affichent directement Dan stel ik u nu voor over te gaan tot de stemming van de beslui- sur l’écran. ten op de agenda van de Gewone Algemene Vergadering. Je vous propose maintenant de passer au vote des résolutions mises à l’ordre du jour de l’Assemblée Générale Ordinaire.

Jaarrekening: agendapunt 4 (slide IML 10) Comptes annuels : point 4 de l’ordre du jour (slide IML 10)

Goedkeuring van de jaarrekening afgesloten op 31 december Approbation des comptes annuels arrêtés au 31 décembre 2009, 2009, waarvan het totaal van de balans EUR 6,9 miljard bedraagt dont le total du bilan s'élève à EUR 6,9 milliards et qui se solde par en die met een toe te wijzen winst van EUR 989 miljoen voor het un bénéfice de l’exercice à affecter de EUR 989 millions auquel il y boekjaar afsluit waaraan de overgedragen winst van vorige jaren a lieu d’ajouter le bénéfice reporté des annés précédentes de EUR van EUR 27 miljoen dient te worden toegevoegd om de totale 27 millions pour obtenir le bénéfice total à affecter de EUR 1,016

89 toe te wijzen winst te bekomen van EUR 1,016 miljard. milliard.

De Raad van Bestuur stelt aan de Algemene Vergadering voor de Le Conseil d’Administration propose à l’Assemblée Générale jaarrekening en een brutodividend van EUR 1,60 per aandeel d'approuver les comptes annuels et la distribution d'un dividende goed te keuren. brut de EUR 1,60 par action.

De Raad van Bestuur bevestigt dat er vandaag 101.116.569 be- Le Conseil d'Administration vous informe que le nombre total staande aandelen zijn, zodat wij u voorstellen de volgende d'actions existantes ce jour s’élève à 101.116.569, ce qui permet winstverdeling goed te keuren: de vous proposer d’approuver la répartition bénéficiaire définitive

comme suit :  wettelijke reserve: EUR 29.506  dividend aan aandeelhouders: EUR 161,7 miljoen  réserve légale: EUR 29.506  over te dragen winst: EUR 854,6 miljoen  dividende aux actionnaires : EUR 161,7 millions

 bénéfice à reporter : EUR 854,6 millions

Ik herinner U eraan dat u op “1” moet drukken om voor de be- Je vous rappelle que vous devez pousser sur le bouton « 1 » pour slissing te stemmen, op “2” om tegen de beslissing te stemmen voter en faveur de la proposition, « 2 » pour voter contre et « 3 » en op “3” om te onthouden. pour vous abstenir.

De stemming is open. Le vote est ouvert.

PAUZE PAUSE

Heeft iedereen gestemd ? Ik dank U. De stemming is afgesloten. Zoals U op het scherm kan zien, wordt dit voorstel aangenomen Est-ce que tout le monde a voté ? Je vous remercie. Le vote est met …... stemmen. clôturé. Comme vous le voyez sur l’écran, cette résolution est adoptée à ...... des voix.

De bestemming van het resultaat laat een verdeling toe van een L'affectation du résultat permet la distribution d'un dividende net nettodividend van EUR 1,2 die betaalbaar zal worden gesteld aan de précompte mobilier de 1,2 euro, ce qui représente une aug- de bezitters van gewone aandelen tegen afgifte van coupon nr. mentation de 8,1% par rapport à l'année précédente, contre 48. Dit is een stijging met 8,1% tegenover vorig jaar. Het Delhaize remise du coupon n° 48. Les actions du Groupe Delhaize commen- Groep-aandeel zal vanaf 31 mei 2010 ex-coupon verhandeld ceront à être traitées ex-coupon le 31 mai 2010. La date à laquelle worden. De dag waarop de aandeelhouders in aanmerking ko- les personnes qui sont actionnaires ont droit au dividende a été men voor het dividend is 2 juni 2010 en de betaaldatum is 3 juni fixée au 2 juin 2010 et la date de paiement au 3 juin 2010. 2010.

Kwijting aan de Bestuurders: agendapunt 5 (slide IML 11) Décharge aux administrateurs : point 5 de l’ordre du jour (slide IML 11)

Er wordt u voorgesteld, overeenkomstig de wet, kwijting te ver- Il vous est proposé, conformément à la loi, d'accorder décharge lenen aan de Bestuurders voor de uitoefening van hun mandaat par un vote spécial aux administrateurs pour l’exercice de leur gedurende het boekjaar 2009. mandat durant l’année 2009.

De stemming is open. Le vote est ouvert. PAUSE PAUZE Est-ce que tout le monde a voté ? Je vous remercie. Le vote est clôturé. Comme vous le voyez sur l’écran, cette résolution est Heeft iedereen gestemd ? Ik dank U. De stemming is afgesloten. adoptée à ...... des voix. Zoals U op het scherm kan zien, wordt dit voorstel aangenomen met …... stemmen.

Kwijting aan de commissaris: agendapunt 6 (slide IML 12) Décharge au commissaire: point 6 de l’ordre du jour (slide IML

12)

Er wordt u voorgesteld, overeenkomstig de wet, kwijting te ver- Il vous est proposé, conformément à la loi, d'accorder décharge au lenen aan de commissaris voor de uitoefening van zijn mandaat commissaire pour l’exercice de son mandat durant l'exercice social gedurende het boekjaar afgesloten op 31 december 2009. clôturé au 31 décembre 2009.

De stemming is open. Le vote est ouvert.

PAUZE PAUSE Est-ce que tout le monde a voté ? Je vous remercie. Le vote est Heeft iedereen gestemd ? Ik dank U. De stemming is afgesloten. Zoals U op het scherm kan zien, wordt dit voorstel aangenomen clôturé. Comme vous le voyez sur l’écran, cette résolution est met …... stemmen. adoptée à ...... des voix.

Hernieuwing van de mandaten van bestuurders: agendapunten Renouvellement de mandats d’administrateurs : points 7.1 à 7.3 7.1 tot 7.3 de l’ordre du jour

Er wordt voorgesteld om het mandaat van sommige bestuurders Il vous est proposé de renouveler le mandat de certains te hernieuwen. administrateurs.

Agendapunt 7.1 (slide IML 13) Point 7.1 de l’ordre du jour (slide IML 13)

Voorstel van hernieuwing van het bestuurdersmandaat van Proposition de renouveler le mandat d'administrateur du Comte Graaf Richard Goblet d’Alviella voor een periode van drie jaar Richard Goblet d’Alviella pour une période de trois années die zal verstrijken na afloop van de gewone algemene vergade- expirant à l'issue de l’assemblée générale ordinaire qui sera invitée ring die zal worden verzocht de jaarrekening van het boekjaar à approuver les comptes de l’exercice social 2012. 2012 goed te keuren.

Agendapunt 7.2 (slide IML 14) Point 7.2 de l’ordre du jour (slide IML 14)

Voorstel van hernieuwing van het bestuurdersmandaat van de Proposition de renouveler le mandat d'administrateur de heer Robert J. Murray voor een periode van twee jaar die zal Monsieur Robert J. Murray pour une période de deux années verstrijken na afloop van de gewone algemene vergadering die expirant à l'issue de l’assemblée générale ordinaire qui sera invitée zal worden verzocht de jaarrekening van het boekjaar 2011 goed à approuver les comptes de l’exercice social 2011. te keuren.

De stemming is open. Le vote est ouvert.

PAUZE PAUSE Est-ce que tout le monde a voté ? Je vous remercie. Le vote est Heeft iedereen gestemd ? Ik dank U. De stemming is afgesloten. clôturé. Comme vous le voyez sur l’écran, cette résolution est Zoals U op het scherm kan zien, wordt dit voorstel aangenomen adoptée à ...... des voix. met …... stemmen.

Agendapunt 7.3 (slide IML 15) Point 7.3 de l’ordre du jour (slide IML 15)

Ik stel u nu voor het bestuurdersmandaat van de heer Jack L. je vous propose maintenant de renouveler le mandat Stahl te hernieuwen voor een periode van vier jaar die zal ver- d'administrateur de Monsieur Jack L. Stahl pour une période de strijken na afloop van de gewone algemene vergadering die zal quatre années expirant à l'issue de l’assemblée générale ordinaire worden verzocht de jaarrekening van het boekjaar 2013 goed te qui sera invitée à approuver les comptes de l’exercice social 2013. keuren.

De stemming is open. Le vote est ouvert.

Onafhankelijkheid van Bestuurders: agendapunt 8 (slide IML Indépendance des administrateurs : point 8 de l’ordre du jour 16) (slide IML 16)

Er wordt u voorgesteld vast te stellen dat de heer Jack L. Stahl Il vous est proposé de constater que Monsieur Jack L. Stahl voldoet aan de criteria van het Belgisch Wetboek van Vennoot- répond aux critères d'indépendance établis par le Code belge des schappen voor de evaluatie van de onafhankelijkheid van de sociétés pour l’évaluation de l’indépendance des administrateurs bestuurders en hem te benoemen tot onafhankelijk bestuurder. et de le nommer administrateur indépendant.

De stemming is open. Le vote est ouvert.

Clausule van controlewijziging in een kredietlijn: agendapunt 9 Clause de changement de contrôle dans une convention de (slide IML 17) crédit : point 9 de l’ordre du jour (slide IML 17)

Voorstel om de clausule van controlewijziging in de gewijzigde Proposition d’approuver la clause de changement de contrôle revolving kredietlijn van USD 500 miljoen over 3 jaar afgesloten contenue dans la convention de crédit revolving amendée de USD door de vennootschap op 1 december 2009 en die beschreven 500 millions d’une durée de 3 ans, conclue le premier décembre staat onder punt 9 van de agenda goed te keuren. 2009 par la société, et qui est décrite au point 9 de l’ordre du jour.

De stemming is open. Le vote est ouvert. PAUSE Est-ce que tout le monde a voté ? Je vous remercie. Le vote est clôturé. Comme vous le voyez sur l’écran, cette résolution est PAUZE adoptée à ...... des voix. Heeft iedereen gestemd ? Ik dank U. De stemming is afgesloten. Zoals U op het scherm kan zien, wordt dit voorstel aangenomen met …... stemmen.

Vervroegde terugbetaling van obligaties, converteerbare obli- Remboursement anticipé d’obligations, d’obligations gaties of thesauriebewijzen op middellange termijn bij contro- convertibles ou de billets de trésorerie à moyen terme en cas de

92 lewijziging: agendapunt 10 (slide IML 18) changement de contrôle : point 10 de l’ordre du jour (slide IML 18)

In de normale bedrijfsvoering van de Vennootschap, overweegt Dans le cours normal des activités de la société, le Conseil de Raad van Bestuur om effecten onder vorm van obligaties, d’Administration pourrait émettre des titres d’emprunt sous la converteerbare obligaties of thesauriebewijzen op middellange forme d’obligations, d’obligations convertibles ou de billets de termijn uit te geven binnen een periode van twaalf maanden trésorerie à moyen terme dans les douze mois suivant la présente volgend op huidige algemene vergadering voor een maximum- assemblée, pour un montant maximum de EUR 1,5 milliard. bedrag van EUR 1,5 miljard. Il est habituel d’inclure une clause conférant aux porteurs Het is de marktpraktijk om bepalingen te voorzien die de obli- d’obligations et de billets de trésorerie le droit d’obtenir un rem- gatiehouders of houders van thesauriebewijzen het recht op boursement anticipé en cas de changement de contrôle de la vervroegde terugbetaling toekennen in geval van een controle- société. Le Conseil d’Administration vous propose d’approuver la wijziging over de Vennootschap. De Raad van Bestuur stelt u possibilité pour les porteurs d’obligations, d’obligations voor om de mogelijkheid goed te keuren voor de houders van convertibles ou de billets de trésorerie à moyen terme qui obligaties, converteerbare obligaties of thesauriebewijzen op pourraient être émises par la Société et décrites au point 10 de middellange termijn die door de Vennootschap zouden kunnen l’ordre du jour d’obtenir le remboursement anticipé de ces worden uitgegeven en beschreven worden in punt 10 van de obligations ou billets de trésorerie en cas de changement de agenda om de vervroegde terugbetaling te bekomen van deze contrôle de la Société. obligaties of thesauriebewijzen in geval van een controlewijziging over de Vennootschap.

SLOTWOORD (slide IML 19) CLÔTURE (slide IML 19)

Aangezien de agenda van deze Gewone Algemene Vergadering L'ordre du jour de cette Assemblée Générale Ordinaire étant is afgewerkt, vraag ik de Secretaris te ontheffen van de lezing épuisé, je demande à l'assemblée de donner au Secrétaire la van het proces-verbaal. dispense de la lecture du procès-verbal.

Gaat u akkoord? Etes-vous d’accord ?

Ja? Ik dank u. Oui? Je vous remercie.

Ik nodig de stemopnemers en de leden van het Bureau uit, als- J'invite les scrutateurs et les membres du Bureau, ainsi que les mede de aandeelhouders die dit wensen, het proces-verbaal van actionnaires qui le désirent, à venir signer le procès-verbal de deze Gewone Algemene Vergadering te komen tekenen. l’Assemblée Générale Ordinaire.

De zitting wordt opgeheven. Ik nodig u nu graag uit voor een La séance est levée. Puis-je maintenant vous inviter à une receptie. réception.

Speech by Pierre-Olivier Beckers, President and Chief Executive Officer, at the Ordinary General Meeting of Delhaize Group May 27, 2010

Dear Shareholders,

After the Chairman’s presentation of our 2009 results, I would like to give you an update on our “New Game Plan”, the strategy we launched at the beginning of this year. I will also highlight our first quarter 2010 results and our expectations for the remainder of the year.

Setting the Scene for the NGP

2009 presented many economic challenges. However, our Group has demonstrated that even in this environment it can generate solid revenue and profit growth, which, we believe, are due to a strong set of attributes we have developed over the years and decades. First, we have consistently focused our operations on food stores. We have made clear choices and commitments when it comes to the geographies where we operate. At the same time we are recognized for our strong banner portfolio and our private brand assortments as well as as an innovation leader in many aspects of our business.

Our operating companies have used these attributes to build strong positions in each of their markets. And together, they have made our Group operating margins one of the highest in the retail industry.

In addition, we recognize that the environment is still challenging. Unemployment is very high in the U.S., real estate prices are still under pressure and in Europe there is the increasingly uncertain macro-economic outlook particularly in Greece and other countries. As a result, consumers continue to be under pressure and the competitive pressure is as high as ever in most of our markets.

So on one hand we believe that we have constructed a solid building platform for the future. On the other hand, we see a changing and challenging environment that requires us to adapt ourselves. In short, we needed a “New Game Plan” in order to reach our targets. We believe that now is the time to accelerate our growth and become one of the best performing food retailers.

We have decided to express our “New Game Plan” through a Greek temple, with the roof representing the overriding vision and values for the Group, the foundations being the enablers of the strategy and its pillars representing its strategic activities, i.e. growth, efficiency and corporate responsibility.

Our plan is organized around eight breakthrough themes clustered in 4 buckets: - The roll-out of one common vision and values - The acceleration of growth - Funded through increased efficiencies - And enabled through best-in-class associate development

One Common Vision and Values

Our “New Game Plan” rallies our operating companies around common values based on a common vision for the Group. These values, Determination, Integrity, Courage, Humility and Humor are the foundation of our behavior and a key to our success.

Accelerated Growth

The plan aims at accelerating revenue growth through, first of all, a greater emphasis on price competitive- ness in all our markets. Growth will further be enabled by assortment innovation including increased focus on 94 health and wellness. Additional drivers include the expansion of our low-cost supermarket formats Red Mar- ket and Bottom Dollar Food. Finally, growth needs to be sustainable. That is why operating as a good corporate citizen is an important part of our strategy towards our associates as well as towards the communities, the areas and the regions we operate in.

Value Leadership – Price/Private Brand

While we believe that price is increasingly important in the mind of consumers, our operating companies’ objective is to offer more than that alone. We strive to become the value leader in each of our markets, offering high quality and well-chosen assortments at competitive prices. To achieve that, we have a clear position against the price leader in each of our markets. Strong commercial actions such as the ones Delhaize Belgium did in 2009 with “Disney Pixar” or “Nickelodeon” are a great way of introducing our stores to a new audience and can effectively support our price message. Private brands are another great way of offering high quality for a lower price. Our comprehensive offering in this area is well placed to do just that. The continued success of our three-tiered private brand program in the U.S. is a good example. In 2009, Alfa Beta added almost 450 new private brand items to its program which supported a 10% private brand sales increase. In Romania and Indonesia private brand assortments were also expanded and those revenues grew by 20% at Mega Image and 40% at Super Indo.

Assortment Optimization

While we are renowned for the variety and quality of our assortment, our operating companies remain vigi- lant to continuously optimize their product ranges. More sophisticated techniques such as value chain analysis help us to identify opportunities for improvement. Indeed a simpler assortment can often improve the customers’ perception of choice and at the same time improve the profit contribution of the remaining product ranges.

Health and Wellness

Our banners will continue to help consumers make healthy and nutritional food choices. Earlier this year, Guiding Stars, our nutritional information system, was licensed to another food retailer in the U.S. and an increasing number of university and school systems in the U.S. are embracing Guiding Stars to rate the nutri- tive value of meals they offer their students. Since last year, Guiding Stars is even consultable via a new web- based application called “My Hannaford” to support shoppers in selecting food products within their unique, nutritional or dietary needs.

Corporate Responsibility

Operating as a good corporate citizen has been part our Company’s DNA since its founding. Today our CR strategy is focused on three areas: people, product and planet. We have defined a clear CR strategy sus- tained by firm commitments for the future. This strategy and the achievements we reached so far in these fields were outlined in our second CR report that we published last year. We are proud that the Belgian Insti- tute of Company Auditors gave us the “Award for Best Belgian Sustainability Report 2008” based on our transparent communication on this subject and I am happy to inform you that only yesterday we issued our third CR report. (It is available today in this room).

New Markets and New Formats

Another way of accelerating growth is through network expansion. Our strategy has consisted of organic growth supplemented by selective acquisitions. After we added a gross 104 stores in 2009, we plan to open around 120 to 130 in 2010, including 25 to 30 here in Belgium. Moreover, over the past years, we have seen a continuous increase of the sales and operating profit contribution of our newer operations, i.e. our newer markets such as Greece, Romania and Indonesia, and our newer formats Bottom Dollar Food and Red Mar- 95 ket. As a consequence we plan a substantial increase in the rate of openings in these newer operations in the next three years, with a view to tripling the rate of openings of the past three years.

Over the past years, we have invested a lot of energy in the development of our low-cost supermarket formats Bottom Dollar Food in the U.S. and Red Market in Europe. The stores operate a low-cost structure enabling to offer sustainable low prices on a full but limited assortment of fresh and dry categories as well as national and private brands. We plan to almost double the size of the Bottom Dollar Food network by the end of 2010. Red Market, first pioneered in Belgium at the start of 2009, will count 23 stores at the end of 2010 in Belgium, Romania and Greece.

Acquisitions are another way to improve your footprint whilst using existing capacity in the supply chain. We will continue to pursue opportunities in this field, including fill-in acquisitions like the ones we concluded in 2009 in Greece with Koryfi or Prodas in Romania. As mentioned last year, Greece is our stepping stone for expansion in Southeast Europe. Earlier this month, we announced that we have started the process to obtain full ownership of Alfa Beta and this should be achieved before the summer of 2010.

Cost and Cash Management

At Delhaize Group we strongly believe in the virtuous cycle of growth, a productivity loop designed to generate more cash from our operations in order to reinvest in lowering prices, fund innovation and create other sales building initiatives. In 2008, our Group realized cost savings of EUR 60 million and another EUR 100 million in 2009 which enabled us for instance to offset operating expense increases such as health care costs in the U.S. and salary indexations in Belgium.

The “New Game Plan” foresees to achieve EUR 300 million in annual gross operating expense savings by the end of 2012, largely based on efficiencies at local and regional level. On top of that will come the impact of improvements in the gross margin, for example as a result of our project to create one single logistic chain network servicing our entire U.S. operations or improved supplier terms as a result of more effective supplier negotiations. The bulk of these savings will be re-invested in the business as it is our plan to maintain our high operating margin while applying it again a higher top line, thus driving operating profit growth.

Cost savings projects typically cover either local or regional initiatives. A good example of a local one is Delha- ize Belgium’s “Excel 2008-2010” plan that enabled the company to drive top line momentum and important increases in operating profit and margin. Supply chain has always been a core part of our operations and we continue to invest significantly in this area to improve efficiency. Last year, Delhaize Belgium opened a brand new semi-automated distribution center for fresh products. Greece has just finished the construction of a brand new center and new facilities are being built in Romania and Indonesia in 2010.

A regional example is the recent transformation of our separate U.S. operating companies into one integrated structure, “Delhaize America”, while keeping the unique go-to-market strategies. As part of this transformation, our U.S banners will all be supported by shared services set up to serve them in areas such as legal, hu- man resources, organizational development and finance and achieve maximized economies of scale.

First Quarter 2010 and 2010 Guidance

I would now like to continue by giving you some comments on our first quarter in 2010 and our expectations for the rest of this year.

In the first quarter of this year, all our operating companies effectively started to execute the new sales building and cost savings initiatives planned in our “New Game Plan”. Despite the tough comparison with last year’s highly inflationary environment, we increased revenues by 1.7% at identical exchange rates. The sales building initiatives included strong promotional actions, price investments and private brand promotions in order to achieve value leadership in their respective markets. In the U.S., in the first quarter, we saw a con- 96 tinued improvement in the sales volumes we generate especially in the number of transactions at Hannaford and in the basket size at Food Lion.

Delhaize Belgium generated remarkable revenue growth of 5.2%, supported by strong comparable store sales growth of 4.3%. Our Belgian operations continue to increase their weekly market share gains, uninterrupted now since the start of 2009. Alfa Beta’s revenues grew 9.2% despite an increasingly uncertain environment. So far we have not seen an impact of the Greek financial crisis on our sales, and moreover we believe that we are well positioned in terms of price and have an outstanding product offering that includes lower priced alternatives for stressed consumers should the consumer confidence in Greece deteriorate. Romania and Indonesia increased their revenues also with a double-digit by 28.3% on a combined basis, at actual exchange rates.

Our operating margin for the first quarter of 2010 remained stable compared to prior year. This is a strong achievement given the tough comparison with prior year as a result of a shift from inflation to deflation im- pacting directly the top line. In addition, we were able to achieve this high operating margin as a result of our ability to offset selling prices investments by a reduction of our operating expenses. All our operating companies achieved a reduction of selling, general and administrative expenses as a percentage of revenues, a solid accomplishment in an environment where the top line is under pressure.

Last week, we announced that Rick Anicetti was leaving Delhaize Group. We thank Rick and while we acknowledge Rick’s many contributions to our company, his departure also creates an opportunity to make the organizational structure of Delhaize America even more nimble and efficient. Our U.S companies are healthy and our American management teams develop great sales and cost savings initiatives that are part of our New Game Plan. While we continue to experience a challenging economic and consumer spending environment, especially in the Southeast and Florida, I am very confident in our U.S executive team’s ability to make our operations there even stronger in the future.

Let me conclude, we are solidly committed to our strategy, the “New Game Plan”, and we have started to execute it as of January 1 of this year. Our first quarter results are a testimony to that. While we see continued volume improvements in the U.S., even though we remain cautious for the rest of the year knowing that the profound changes to our pricing strategy will take time to deliver, and that the macroeconomic and competitive environment will continue to put pressure on our customers, we are convinced that our strategic growth initiatives, supported by our solid balance sheet, leading market positions, excellence in execution and strong management teams are all elements that will strengthen our Group and enable us to confirm our guidance of 2 to 5% operating profit growth or 7 to 10% growth at identical exchange rates if we include last year’s restructuring, store closing and impairment charge.

I would like to end today with words of gratitude by thanking our Board of Directors and our Chairman for the trust they place in our management. I also want to thank my colleagues in the Executive Committee for their leadership, creativity and team spirit. I would also like to thank all of our management teams and associates around the world for their determination, integrity, courage, humility and humor as well as their commitment to share the same vision to deliver the best of and for Delhaize on a daily basis. And last but not least, I would like to thank you, dear shareholders, for your continued confidence and support.

Thank you.

Speech by Georges Jacobs, Chairman of the Board of Directors, at the Ordinary General Meeting of Delhaize Group

MAY 27, 2010

Dear Shareholders,

The economic environment in 2009 was another challenging one for business. Competitive activity stepped up as consumers continued to be under pressure as a result of rising unemployment, reduced purchasing power and the financial crisis. During 2009, inflation turned into deflation, putting additional stress on the top line. Our operating companies reacted appropriately and continued to anticipate trends and accomplish planned and targeted investments and cost reductions to drive growth.

In such an environment, our Group posted solid results in 2009. Excluding the 53rd revenue week in 2008, we grew our revenues with 2.6%, the seventh consecutive year of growth. At the same time we maintained our industry high level operating margin at 4.7%. The many sales building initiatives our operating companies undertook, included price investments and strong marketing campaigns, market renewal and store remodeling work as well as a continued focus on assortment innovation and private brands. Continued store openings and selective fill-in acquisitions in Greece and Romania helped us to expand our footprint in Europe.

U.S. Revenues

In 2009, revenues of our U.S. operations decreased with 1.3% in local currency. Excluding the 53rd week in 2008, revenues in local currency were above prior year by 0.7%. Comparable store sales decreased by 0.4% and was significantly impacted by deflation, prudent consumer spending and a very promotional competitive environment.

All our U.S. banners, Food Lion, Hannaford and Sweetbay, continued to invest in prices, largely financed by major cost reduction programs and gross margin support. This improved their price positioning and further resulted in positive trends of the volumes sold. Belgium Revenues

In 2009, Delhaize Belgium increased its revenues by 4.7%. Comparable store sales increased by 2.7%, a solid step up from 2008. Delhaize Belgium continued its price repositioning that started in 2008. Price investments supported by effective communications and targeted promotional activities have led to continued market share gains every single week of the year. Delhaize Belgium ended the year with a market share of 25.7%, an increase of 58 basis points compared to 2008.

Greece and Rest of the World Revenues

Our Greek operations increased their revenues by 10.2%, the fourth consecutive year of double-digit revenue growth supported by excellent comparable store sales growth and continued growth of the store network. Revenues of Romania and Indonesia, reported together in our ‘Rest of the World’ segment, increased by 27.3%, at identical exchange rates, as a result of the expansion of the store network in both countries and high retail inflation.

Operating Profit & Margin

Delhaize Group was again able to maintain its industry leading operating margin of 4.7% as a result of gross margin improvements, improved inventory management and continued cost savings initiatives. By the end of 2009, our Group had delivered on its commitment to realize cost reductions of EUR 100 million and working capital improvements in excess of EUR 50 million. 98

Net profit from continuing operations increased by 5.5% at actual exchange rates.

The net debt to equity ratio continued to improve, decreasing to 46.8% compared to 57.3% at the end of 2008 as a result of strong free cash generation, partly offset by the dividend payment. In 2009, Delhaize Group successfully raised USD 300 million in debt and reimbursed the remaining EUR 170 million on the con- vertible bond and EUR 150 million outstanding on a Eurobond which both matured in the second quarter of 2009. Furthermore, Delhaize America renewed its USD 500 million credit facility in December 2009.

Looking forward

Dear shareholders, as said our Group posted solid results in 2009. Even though we cannot control the macroeconomic environment, we are in control of our business. The past years have shown that our Group has the operating flexibility to adapt to short-term challenges while consistently pursuing its long-term goals. In a few minutes, Pierre-Olivier will expand on our strategy for the future.

Dividend & Governance

Based on our good 2009 performance, our clear strategy for the future and our confidence in the Company’s strong banners, the Board of Directors proposes the payment of a gross dividend of EUR 1.6 per share. After 25% Belgian withholding tax, this will result in a net dividend of EUR 1.2 per share or an increase of 8.1% over prior year.

This 8.1% increase is in line with our dividend policy to pay out a regularly increasing dividend while retaining free cash flow in an amount consistent with opportunities to finance the future growth of the Company.

I am pleased to announce that the Board will propose the renewal of the mandate of Robert J. Murray for a term of two years, Count Goblet d’Alviella for a term of three years and Jack L. Stahl for a term of four years for approval. In addition the Board will propose to acknowledge that Jack L. Stahl is independent within the meaning of the Belgian Company Code.

Conclusion

2009 was again a year full of challenges, but our strong strategy of combining the long-term vision with the short-term approach proved again to be successful. On behalf of the Board of Directors, I would like to con- gratulate and thank Pierre-Olivier Beckers, his team and all our associates throughout the Group for their commitment and determination to lead our Group to solid results. And I want to thank you, dear shareholders, for your continued support and confidence in Delhaize Group and its management team.

Delhaize Group – Shareholders Meeting – May 27, 2010 Page 1 of 2

Shareholders Meeting Regulated Information May 27, 2010 – 04:30 p.m. CET

DELHAIZE GROUP SHAREHOLDERS APPROVE 2009 DIVIDEND

BRUSSELS, Belgium, May 27, 2010 - Delhaize Group (Euronext Brussels: DELB, NYSE: DEG), the Belgian international food retailer, announced today that during its Ordinary General Meeting its shareholders have approved the annual accounts for fiscal year 2009 and the distribution of a EUR 1.60 gross dividend per share. After deduction of a 25% withholding tax, this results in a net dividend of EUR 1.20 per share.

The 2009 dividend will become payable to owners of ordinary shares against coupon no. 48. The Delhaize Group shares will start trading ex-coupon on May 31, 2010 (opening of the market). The record date (i.e. the date at which shareholders are entitled to the dividend) is June 2, 2010 (closing of the market) and the dividend will be payable as from June 3, 2010. The ADR dividend record date is June 2, 2010 and the payment of the dividend to Delhaize Group’s ADR holders will be made through Citibank beginning on June 8, 2010. Dur- ing the General Meeting, Delhaize Group’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Pierre-Olivier Beckers, confirmed the earlier-announced earnings guidance for the full year 2010.

The shareholders approved the renewal of the director’s mandates of Count Richard Goblet d’Alviella for a period of three years, of Mr. Robert J. Murray for a period of two years, and of Mr. Jack L. Stahl for a period of four years. The shareholders acknowledged that Mr. Jack L. Stahl satisfies the requirements for indepen- dence under the Belgian Company Code, and appointed him as independent Director thereunder.

The speeches and presentations, the minutes of the Meeting and the results of the votes will be made available on the Delhaize Group website (www.delhaizegroup.com) in the coming days.

» Delhaize Group

Delhaize Group is a Belgian international food retailer present in six countries on three continents. At the end of the first quarter of 2010, Delhaize Group’s sales network consisted of 2 725 stores. In 2009, Delhaize Group posted EUR 19.9 billion (USD 27.8 billion) in revenues and EUR 514 million (USD 717 million) in net profit (Group share). At the end of 2009, Delhaize Group employed approximately 138 000 people. Delhaize Group’s stock is listed on Euronext Brussels (DELB) and the New York Stock Exchange (DEG).

This press release is available in English, French and Dutch. You can also find it on the website www.delhaizegroup.com. Questions can be sent to [email protected].

» Contacts

Guy Elewaut: + 32 2 412 29 48 Amy Shue (U.S. investors): +1 704 633 8250 (ext.2529) Geert Verellen: + 32 2 412 83 62 Barbera Hoppenbrouwers (media): + 32 2 412 86 69 Aurélie Bultynck: + 32 2 412 83 61

Delhaize Group – Shareholders meeting – May 27, 2010 Page 2 of 2

CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

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Statements that are included or incorporated by reference in this press release and other written and oral statements made from time to time by Delhaize Group and its representatives, other than statements of historical fact, which address activities, events and developments that Delhaize Group expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future, including, without limitation, statements about strategic options, future strategies and the anticipated benefits of these strategies, are “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the U.S. federal securities laws that are subject to risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements generally can be identified as statements that include phrases such as “guidance,” “outlook,” “projected,” “believe,” “target,” “predict,” “estimate,” “forecast,” “strategy,” “may,” “goal,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “plan,” “foresee,” “likely,” “will,” “should” or other similar words or phrases. Although such statements are based on current information, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from those projected depending upon a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, changes in the general economy or the markets of Delhaize Group, in consumer spending, in inflation or currency exchange rates or in legislation or regulation; competitive factors; adverse determination with respect to claims; inability to timely develop, remodel, integrate or convert stores; and supply or quality control problems with vendors. Additional risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those stated or implied by such forward-looking statements are described in Delhaize Group’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F and other filings made by Delhaize Group with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which risk factors are incorporated herein by reference. Delhaize Group disclaims any obligation to update developments of these risk factors or to announce publicly any revision to any of the forward-looking statements contained in this release, or to make corrections to reflect future events or developments.

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Press release Compex

Compex, the global leader in electrical muscle stimulation with more than 20 years of experience, wants to expand its online presence after launching its new website. With a Facebook page, Twitter account and a blog, Compex wants to reach all its customers with tips about products, health, sports and beauty.

In recent years, the importance of social media has become undeniable. Consumers interact with each other and with companies like they have never done before. Compex too, wants to offer its customers a personalized and direct access point via social media. Also, users would be able to consult professional coaches and to develop specific and personalized training programs. Finally, the social media profiles will be platforms where Compex users can share ideas and ask questions about products.

These people are already on Twitter, tweeting about their Compex experiences:

@t2coachwendy says: The other night I went to sleep with a sore back. I lied there with my Compex Sport elite for 25 minutes and lower back aches were gone.

@PhiloSana says: Compex Active Recovery: great way to recover after long car ride Looking forward to how great I'll feel for tomorrow's workout

With its Facebook page, Compex wants to create an online forum so that its users can share their training and sport experiences, using their Compex device. Facebook will also feature news on exclusive promotions, as will Twitter. Via the Compex blog, the company wants to promote its events and encourage users to participate in them. Also, news on products, innovation and the Compex brand will be published on the blog.

Compex can be found on Twitter @Compex_INT

Compex can be found on Facebook via http://www.facebook.com/pages/Compex- International/120183631349967

The Compex blog can be found via http://compexblog.com/

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Journalism and Social Media Survey

1. Do you consult social media for your job as a journalist? If so, which? a. Possible answers: a matrix with on the right a list of social media (at the bottom: “other, please specify”) and in the header: never, almost never, sometimes, every week, every day 2. Do you have social media accounts of your own (not related to your job as a journalist)? If so, which? a. Possible answers: a matrix with on the right a list of social media (at the bottom: “other, please specify”) and in the header: never, almost never, sometimes, every week, every day 3. Do you have to generate content on social media for your job as a journalist? a. Possible answers: a matrix with on the right a list of social media (at the bottom: “other, please specify”) and in the header: never, almost never, sometimes, every week, every day 4. Has the way you work changed with the advent of social media? a. No b. Maybe c. Yes, how?: …………………………. 5. Has your newspaper or medium ever considered restricting access to online content to pay- ing customers? a. No b. We have been thinking about it, but will not do it in the near future c. We have been thinking about it, and will do it in the near future d. We already restrict access to online content 6. Do you think people will share less of your articles on social media if access is restricted? a. No b. Maybe c. Yes Comments 7. Do you feel the financial crisis has affected the way traditional media deals with social media? In what way? a. No b. Maybe c. Yes Comments 8. What effect has the surge of social media on the quality of traditional news media? a. It’s lost quality b. Quality remained c. It’s gained quality Comments 9. Do you think social media will become more important for your business than they are now? a. No b. Maybe c. Yes Comments 103

10. Which formats does your medium offer on its website? a. List of formats b. Other, please specify 11. If your website features videos, do you make them (or some of them) yourself; or do you take them from other media (e.g. YouTube or Broadcasting channels like BBC)? a. All movies are made by us b. Some movies are made by us c. All movies are taken from other media 12. Does your medium allow readers to comment on articles? a. No b. Yes, on all articles c. Yes, on some articles 13. Do readers have to be registered to comment? a. No b. Yes, for some articles c. Yes, for all articles 14. Are comments screened by the editor? a. No b. Yes, after they are published c. Yes, before they are published 15. Can readers embed (YouTube) videos into their comments on articles? a. No b. Yes 16. Can users upload their own videos to your website? a. No b. Yes 17. Do you allow readers to share your articles on via their own social media accounts? a. No b. Yes, all articles c. Yes, but only some articles 18. Do your readers have to be registered to share articles? a. No b. Yes, for some articles c. Yes, for all articles 19. Have you got a mobile website on which your newspaper can be read? a. No, we have not been thinking about this b. No, but we have been thinking about this c. Yes

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AN ANALYSIS OF DELHA IZE GRO UP AND ITS MAIN COMPETITORS’ PRESENCE IN FINANCIAL AND BELGIAN, DUTCH AND U.S. REGIONAL MEDIA

Masterpaper Fabrice Hofman

Over the past years, Delhaize Group has worked with the media mostly in a reactive way. Typically, the Belgian press is covering Delhaize Group as ‘Delhaize Bel- gium’. Although Delhaize Belgium is its historical home business, it is only one of Delhaize Group’s several operating companies.

Although Delhaize Group has satisfying contacts with key journalists of Belgian newspapers and Brussels-based newswires, this is not the case internationally. Del- haize Group does not have a clear understanding of how it’s covered abroad, nor does it have a network of international media contacts. Delhaize Group wants to build an international media plan which enables them to pro-actively communicate with the media on the topics of interest to the company, its shareholders and stakeholders.

A first step was made in 2007, with the outset of Media Plan 2007. The 2007 Plan highlighted the same arguments as described above and argued that it was necessary to first map the media environment in which Delhaize Group and its competitors are present. That is why Delhaize Group decided to start up an internship program for which Fabrice Hofman applied. This Masterpaper is a description of how he set up the methodology of the media analysis, the analyses’ findings and his experiences at the Investor Relations & External Communications department at Del- haize Group.

Fabrice Hofman studied Meertalige Bedrijfscommunicatie at Ghent University, an advanced Master program for students that already have one Master in another field. The program consist of several general colleges, guest lectures, company visits, team projects and an internship.

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