After intense negotiations, the outcome is approaching. The Casino group has signed agreements with Auchan and Les Mousquetaires/Intermarché to sell them 288 hypermarkets and supermarkets 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 communicated published this Wednesday January 24.
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, Casino specifies. The one in Aix-en-Provence must be by Auchan. “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”.
12,000 employees affected by a change of brand
Earlier this Wednesday, AFP was able to learn from union sources that the sale of these 288 stores had been finalized. 98 brands, rather large, must be sold to Auchan, and 190 to Intermarché, which should then sell 26 to Carrefour, particularly in areas where acquisitions could pose competition problems. Negotiations, which began at the end of 2023, initially covered a total of 313 stores.
Within Casino, “there remain 23 stores, including 7 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. Of these, more than 12,000 would be affected by a change of sign, the group had indicated. In the press release published this Wednesday, the Les Mousquetaires and Auchan group states that it is committed to “resuming all the employment contracts of the employees assigned to the transferred stores and service stations”.
A central social and economic committee (CSEC) is to be held this 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 Kretinsky and Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, backed by Attestor investment fund. The probable resale of stores at Carrefour by Intermarché, revealed Tuesday by the economic daily The echoeshad neither been confirmed nor denied by the companies concerned.