Two weeks after the announcement that Auchan and Intermarché had made a joint bid of one billion euros for Casino‘s supermarkets and hypermarkets, comes confirmation that the three parties have entered into exclusive talks to complete the sale.
Better guarantees
The purchase would cover 313 shops, which would mean about 100 would be left out of the deal. The worth of the deal has also risen to 1.35 billion euros, the three parties say in a press release.
Casino would prefer the Auchan-Intermarché bid because it would provide better guarantees for the nearly 20,000 staff affected. The other candidates, Lidl (plus market leader E.Leclerc) and Carrefour, would reportedly take over up to four thousand fewer jobs, according to trade magazine LSA.
Intermarché is no stranger to Casino: it previously bought some 200 supermarkets (in three tranches) for 1.7 billion euros. The retailer has been suffering heavy losses for years and the new owner, Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, wants to focus on the chains Monoprix and Franprix.
