Ahold Joint Venture to Tender for Disco Shares.

ZAANDAM, The Netherlands--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 13, 1998--Royal Ahold, the international food retailer, and Velox Retail Holdings today announced their intention to begin on Thursday November 19, 1998, a tender offer for the common shares and American Depositary Shares of Argentine supermarket company Disco, S.A., not already owned by them.

The offer will be made through their 50/50 joint venture Disco Ahold International Holdings, N.V. The joint venture currently owns 52% (24,663,606 common shares) of Disco S.A. Velox Retail Holdings is a member of the Velox Group, a Latin American banking and financing company.

The joint venture will offer the US dollar equivalent at the time of payment of 7.0 Argentine pesos per common share (a premium of approximately 35% over the closing price of 5.2 Argentine pesos on the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange on November 12, 1998) and the USD equivalent at the time of payment of 21.0 Argentine pesos per ADS (a premium of 35% over the closing price of USD 15.5 on the New York Stock Exchange on November 12, 1998).

Each ADS represents three Disco common shares. Disco's common shares are traded on the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange and the Disco ADSs are traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

The tender offer will begin Thursday, November 19, 1998 and will expire on or about Thursday, December 17, 1998. Once the tender offer is completed, Disco Ahold International Holdings intends to delist Disco.

Royal Ahold (Koninklijke Ahold nv) is a leading international food retailer with annualized sales of approximately $35 billion and 3,500 stores and 250,000 associates worldwide. Ahold is the leading food retailer in The Netherlands, one of the top supermarket companies in the US, and has major operations in several countries in Southern and Central Europe, Latin America and Asia. In the United States, Ahold is prominent along the East Coast, operating the BI-LO, Giant Food Stores (including Edwards), Tops Markets (including Finast), and Stop & Shop companies encompassing over 830 stores. Upon closure of the Giant Food Inc. acquisition on October 28, 1998, in the US Ahold will operate over 1000 stores along the eastern seaboard with annualized US sales approaching $20 billion.

In addition to its listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: AHO), Ahold's shares are trading on the Amsterdam Exchanges and on the Swiss Exchange, and Ahold options are also traded on the American Stock Exchange (AMEX). Ahold common shares may be accessed on the Reuter Equities 2000 Service under the symbol AHLN.AS and on Quotron under the symbol AHOLN.EU. Additional information is available on Ahold's home page: http://www.ahold.nl.