Standa

Standa was an Italian chain of department stores. It was founded in 1931 as Magazzini Standard (Società Anonima Magazzini Standard) by a former executive of UPIM and subsequently renamed as Standa (acronym for Società Tutti Articoli Nazionali Dell'Abbigliamento). When it was bought by Montedison in 1966 it had 126 branches all over Italy. It was owned by Silvio Berlusconi on July 1988, through Fininvest, who in 1998 sold the "non-food" stores to the Coin due to a financial crisis. In 1999, the grocery stores chain was disbanded and the stores sold by geographical position: the stores based in Northern Italy were sold to REWE Group and those based on Southern Italy were sold to Conad. The Standa trademark is now officially owned by REWE, who in 2009 has rebranded its supermarkets as Billa. A Standa store was opened by REWE in Cologne.