Kota Kinabalu: In another major shake-up of East Malaysia’s retail landscape, Sabah’s home-grown Pick N Pay convenience grocer chain will be officially taken over by Sarawak-based Everrise Supermarket today (Oct 1).
Operated by Eastern Grocer Sdn Bhd, Everrise is one of East Malaysia’s largest premium grocery giants. Founded in 1993 by the late Simon Sia and headquartered in Kuching, Eastern Grocer was acquired by Grab Holdings Inc. in 2025.
Any potential rebranding or name change for existing Pick N Pay outlets will not happen immediately.
Grab Holdings Inc. expansion in the East Malaysia grocery retail sector has acquired the entire stake in Everrise supermarkets from private equity firm Navis Capital Partners.
Navis first invested in Eastern Grocer Sdn Bhd, the operator of Everrise, in 2019 when the business mainly targeted the mass market. Since then, the chain has grown into a premium grocery brand with 19 outlets in Sabah and Sarawak.
By combining Everrise’s strengths with Grab’s experience in premium groceries, the brand has become a leader in East Malaysia’s premium grocery market, following Everrise’s growth through Grab’s digital transformation plans.
This deal follows Grab’s purchase of a majority stake in Jaya Grocer Holdings Sdn Bhd, a popular supermarket chain in Malaysia, two years ago.
This development only leaves Sabah with one major local brand retail chain – CKS Supermarket, which also was involved in property development and investments outside Sabah.
In May 2025, West Malaysia’s Econsave Cash & Carry Sdn Bhd acquired the Sabah-based supermarket chain Bataras Sdn Bhd, which started from Labuan. Any name change to the Bataras brand was also not immediate to maintain the goodwill brand recognition by Sabah customers.
Bataras expanded by acquiring former Giant Supermarket outlets, which when the foreign retail chain expanded into Sabah started with buying over Likas Supermarket outlets in the city.
In the recent past, Boulevard Hypermarket, a Sarawak supermarket chain was taken over by another Sarawak retail chain – the Emart Group which is also actively involved in hotel business and property development. Emart becomes Sabah’s first 24-hour hypermarket located at Lintas Jaya, Kepayan, here.
Another Sarawak-origin supermarket retail chain – the Servay Group’s office block, shopping mall and condominium units with multi-storey car parks is nearing completion at the Bandar Baru Penampang locale, bringing another major shopping mall to Greater Kota Kinabalu soon.
The business environment of Sabah’s brick and mortar retail outlets is increasingly more competitive as online shopping including China online retail distribution outlets are actively garnering more customers with lower pricing and free deliveries.
Kota Kinabalu Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Datuk Michael Lui has sounded the alarm at the fast changing retail business environment with online shopping attracting many local customers.
Lui heads a company that distributes many branded fast moving consumer goods to local retail outlets.
