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The decision has been taken after months of battle: Carrefour is allowed to take over the French organic chain Bio c’ Bon and will merge the company with So.bio, a specialised chain it has owned since 2019.
Five takeover candidates
The Commercial Court of Paris has just accepted Carrefour’s bid for the bankrupt organic chain Bio c’ Bon. The retail group is paying 115 million euro for the acquisition: of this, 60 million is for the creditors, 25 million for stocks and rent arrears, 20 million for the bank debt and 10 million for the small private shareholders, LSA reports.
Carrefour wants to merge the activities of Bio c’ Bon with those of another bio chain it acquired in 2019: So.bio. Both signs will remain in place, says CEO Alexandre Bompard in a press release: Bio c’ Bon will become the brand for organic city stores, the signboard So.bio will be reserved for larger stores on the periphery.
With some 115 stores, Bio c’ Bon is the third largest specialised organic chain in France, after Naturalia and Biocoop. The retailer also has four stores in Brussels. Although the organic food market is doing very well, the retailer got into financial difficulties due to overambitious expansion plans. The company tempted some 3,000 private individuals to invest in the retail property but was condemned to repay some of them because the promised return of 7% could not be achieved. According to Bio c’ Bon itself, the turnover also suffered from the actions of the ‘yellow vests’ and the corona crisis.
In total there were as many as five takeover candidates for the company: one of them was the Zouari family group, which also owns the Picard frozen food chain, while Casino also showed interest through its organic branch Naturalia. Organic colleagues La Vie Claire and Biocoop were also in the running.
