At the end of last year, Ahold Delhaize reportedly started secret preliminary talks with Carrefour, aiming to acquire the French chain. By January, however, the negotiations had already ended.
Direct talks
Carrefour and Ahold Delhaize “held preparatory talks at the end of last year with a view to a takeover of the former by the latter“, French publication La Lettre writes. However, the Dutch retail group soon threw in the towel.
According to the article, the talks took place without the intervention of banks, directly between the team of Ahold Delhaize (with its CEO Frans Muller) and that of Carrefour (with CEO Alexandre Bompard, CFO Matthieu Malige and General Secretary Laurent Vallée).
Carrefour is takeover target
The talks ended quickly and without result at the beginning of 2025, partly because a takeover would lead to a problematic concentration of power in Belgium and Romania. Moreover, French politics is always cautious when it comes to acquisitions of large local companies by foreign groups.
However, the news does confirm the problematic situation of Carrefour, which has become a takeover target due to its low share price. While it is almost as big as Ahold Delhaize in terms of sales (eighty billion euros compared to Ahold Delhaize’s ninety billion), its stock market valuation is only ten billion euros – just a third of the Dutch group’s thirty billion. In 2021, Canadian group Couche-Tard had already tried to acquire Carrefour, but that deal fell through after political interference.
The retailers involved have not yet responded to the news reports.
