A Casino supermarket in Ploubalay, in Côtes-d’Armor, July 5, 2023 (AFP / Damien MEYER)
Ultimately, 288 super and hypermarkets will leave the fold of Casino: the distributor in financial difficulties will sell these stores to its competitors Auchan and Intermarché, which will then have to sell around thirty to Carrefour.
Casino entered into negotiations in December with Auchan and Intermarché to sell them a large part of its stores under the Casino or ex-Géant brands, since renamed Casino Hyper Frais.
It announced on Wednesday that it had signed agreements to sell 288 hypermarkets and supermarkets, including their service stations, to its competitors by the second quarter of 2024 and “on the basis of an enterprise value of between 1.3 and 1.35 billion euros,” according to a press release.
“Les Mousquetaires and Auchan thus contribute to preserving more than 12,000 jobs in stores,” claim the takeover candidates in a joint press release. Their respective bosses, Thierry Cotillard and Yves Claude, speak of a “strategic shift in the distribution sector in France and for our companies”.
“We are fully realizing the dismantling of Casino,” exclaimed Nathalie Devienne (FO), spokesperson for the Casino inter-union.
In detail, 98 stores, rather large in size, should come under the Auchan brand, and 190 will be sold to the Mousquetaires/Intermarché group.
Of this last total, 26 should be sold by Intermarché to Carrefour, particularly in areas where acquisitions could pose competition problems.
The Carrefour group announced Wednesday evening that it had entered into “exclusive negotiations” to acquire a total of 31 Intermarché stores, including five “purchased directly” from the group of independents.
The acquisition of the 31 stores, the amount of which is “not significant” according to Carrefour, concerns a park weighing around 400 million euros in annual turnover and must be concluded in the “second quarter of 2024”.
– Transfer in three waves –
Demonstration in Saint-Etienne, on December 17, 2023, at the call of the Casino inter-union, to defend jobs and express their attachment to the city’s emblematic brand (AFP / OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE)
In France, E.Leclerc is the market leader with around 24% market share, ahead of Carrefour, Intermarché, Système U, Auchan and Lidl. Casino was the seventh player in the sector.
Within Casino, there remain 26 stores which have not been taken over, according to the inter-union association. “The future is uncertain because there will no longer be a structure like DCF to manage them,” notes a union representative to AFP.
DCF, or Distribution Casino France, is the entity in which the French super and hypermarkets of the group are grouped, which still had 50,000 employees in France at the end of 2022.
Referring to an “unpleasant surprise”, Ms. Devienne asked Casino to “relaunch information-consultations” to “find buyers”.
In addition to the 12,000 jobs affected by a change of brand, the departure of these numerous stores will have consequences for the group’s support functions, particularly administrative and logistics.
It is planned to transfer the stores in three successive waves, on April 30, May 31 and July 1, specifies Casino. They will take on their new colors “between May and September 2024”, indicate Intermarché and Auchan.
The agreements signed between these food distribution players also provide for four of the Casino group’s logistics warehouses to be taken over by its competitors, the company specifies. The one in Aix-en-Provence must be by Auchan. And “the logistics service contracts of Montélimar Frais (26), Corbas Gel (69) and Salon-de-Provence Gel (13)” must be “transferred to the Groupement Les Mousquetaires”.
– “Substitution agreements” –
Demonstration at the call of the Casino inter-union in front of the group’s headquarters in Saint-Etienne, December 5, 2023 (AFP / OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE)
For Laurent Wauquiez, the president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region where the headquarters of the distributor in difficulty is located, this announcement is “good news for Casino and the Saint-Etienne basin”, according to a press release on Wednesday.
The buyers have undertaken to “resume all employment contracts of employees assigned to stores and service stations” and to maintain “the provisions and benefits resulting from the Casino collective status for a period of 15 months”, which is provided for by law.
The Casino inter-union is nevertheless concerned about “the social conditions that will exist in the acquired stores”.
Speaking to AFP on Tuesday, Sylvain Macé, national secretary of CFDT Services, called on employees to “negotiate substitution agreements in Casino stores” which will change brands.
As for Casino, the group, still controlled for a few months by its CEO and largest shareholder Jean-Charles Naouri, is in the process of restructuring its debt. It must change hands by March/April and come under the control of billionaires Daniel Kretinsky and Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, backed by the Attestor investment fund.
The Paris commercial court is due to rule on February 5 on the distributor’s rescue plan, which entered into an accelerated safeguard procedure at the end of October and until the end of February.