The world's fourth largest retailer announced the sale to ING Property Fund Central Europe, a fund managed by ING Real Estate, of shopping centres in Bielsko Biala and Elblag, Poland and one in Karviná, in the Czech Republic.

The streamlining plans are part of the company's attempts to recover from a €1 billion debt caused by the discovery of widespread fraud in its US Foodservice business and currency devaluations in Latin America.

The sale is part of its 'Road to Recovery' plan based around restructuring its operations in a bid to strengthen its financial position through debt reduction.

Ahold has already sold its hypermarkets in both the Czech Republic and Poland, but will continue to operate its Hypernova hypermarket in Centrum Karviná in the Czech Republic.

And it is now ready to convert the recently acquired 56 Julius Meinl stores, also in the Czech Republic, into its Albert store format.

Walter Samuels of Ahold told FoodandDrinkEurope.com "The main objective is to streamline the business into focusing on our core business strengths."

Samuels also indicated that Ahold might look towards making larger acquisitions in the future, but only if they fitted with all areas of the companies operations.

But, he added, for the moment Ahold will continue to focus on short-term, local acquisitions like those made recently in the Czech Republic.

The transaction consists of a cash consideration and debt repaid to Ahold and is expected to be complete in early 2006.