Europe 1 with AFP // Photo credits: MAGALI COHEN / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 3:30 p.m., January 24, 2024, modified at 3:30 p.m., January 24, 2024
This Wednesday, the Casino group announced to the unions that it was going to sell 288 stores, supermarkets and hypermarkets, to Intermarché and Auchan.
Negotiations, which began at the end of 2023, initially covered a total of 313 stores.
The Casino group, in negotiations since December to sell a large part of its super and hypermarkets to its competitors Intermarché and Auchan, announced Wednesday to the inter-union that it plans to sell 288 stores to these two brands, according to sources. unions.
It is in the process of selling 98, rather large, stores to Auchan, and 190 to Intermarché, which should then sell 26 to Carrefour, particularly in areas where acquisitions could pose competition problems.
The information was confirmed to AFP by a source familiar with the negotiations.
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Sale of part of the Casino stores: “18,000 employees” affected, according to the inter-union association
More than 12,000 would be affected by a change of brand
Negotiations, which began at the end of 2023, initially covered a total of 313 stores.
Within Casino, "there remain 23 stores, including seven hypermarkets, which have not been taken over and for which the future is uncertain, because there will no longer be a structure such as DCF to manage them", notes a union representative.
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.
Among these, more than 12,000 would be affected by a change of brand, the group indicated.
Contacted by AFP, Casino communication did not confirm the information on the distribution of stores sold.
The action of the distributor of Saint-Etienne origin has been suspended since Wednesday morning, "at the request of the company, pending the publication of a press release and until further notice", indicated the stock exchange operator Euronext on its website.
A central social and economic committee (CSEC) is to be held on Wednesday in Saint-Etienne and the list of stores taken over should be presented on this occasion.
Still controlled for a few months by its CEO and largest shareholder Jean-Charles Naouri, the group in the midst of restructuring its debt must change hands by March/April and come under the control of billionaires Daniel Křetínský and Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, backed by Attestor investment fund.
The probable resale of stores to Carrefour by Intermarché, revealed Tuesday by the economic daily Les Echos, had been neither confirmed nor denied by the companies concerned.