It is not known whether Dame Shirley Bassey is still looking for a big spender at the age of 79. But, if so, the lady can certainly find one with German retailer Schwarz-Gruppe (Schwarz Group) whose spending has now reached record levels. Last year, the owner of discount subsidiary Lidl and its XXL-sized brother Kaufland invested a whopping €5bn.This impressive sum was essentially used to upgrade and expand the store base in Germany and Europe. That was considerably more cash than the annual investment of major rivals Edeka, Rewe and Metro Group put together. It also easily beats that of other national market leaders in Europe such as Carrefour in France, Ahold in the Netherlands, Migros in Switzerland or Tesco in the UK. Admittedly, the capital expenditure (capex) of US giant Walmart was more than twice as high last year (€10.2bn). But, if you put capex in relation to net revenues for both companies, then our slide rule gives Schwarz Group 6.3 per cent against only 2.4 per cent for Walmart. In fact, our thrifty Swabians topped the international league of all the grocery multiples we reviewed (cf. chart below).