PARIS (Reuters) – Casino unveiled on Wednesday a restructuring plan providing for the elimination of some 1,300 to 3,267 positions with the aim of returning to growth by focusing on local commerce.
The group’s shares gained 4.67% on the Paris Stock Exchange a few minutes after the opening.
The reorganization project provides for 1,293 net job cuts within the group’s “headquarters” functions, including 554 in Saint-Étienne, and “failing to find buyers, the closure of hypermarkets and supermarkets and certain logistics platforms, i.e. the elimination of a maximum of 1,974 positions,” declared the distributor, taken over last month by Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky after coming close to stopping payments.
The group’s historic headquarters in Saint-Etienne would thus retain 1,010 positions out of the current 1,564, Casino added in a press release.
The reorganization plan also plans to invest 1.2 billion euros by 2028 in order to modernize points of sale.
Casino has also concluded agreements with Intermarché and Auchan to set up purchasing centers to “sustain and develop partnerships with the agricultural world and French industrial players over (ten years)”.
The job protection plan will be presented to the CSEs on May 6.
Casino, which reported in February a net loss of 5.66 billion euros in 2023, will publish its turnover for the first quarter after the close of the Paris Stock Exchange.
(Written by Dimitri Rhodes and Jean-Stéphane Brosse, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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