Casino to sell Leader Price to Aldi

French supermarket chain Casino wants to offload its discount chain Leader Price and is now supposedly close to a deal with Aldi.

750 million euros

According to Reuters, an agreement between Casino and Aldi is imminent: both parties supposedly more or less agree on a 750 million euro value for the discount chain, but the deal is not signed yet. Neither Aldi nor Casino wished to respond to the article.

Already in September last year, Casino confirmed rumours that the French retailer was conducting exclusive negotiations with Aldi to sell Leader Price. At the time, there was talk of a takeover price of “well over 400 million euros”. The French chain is burdened by heavy debt and is trying to tackle that with a divestment plan worth 4.5 billion euros. The sale of Leader Price is part of that downsizing.

On its own French market, Casino has suffered greatly from the fierce competition including from E.Leclerc and discounters Aldi and Lidl. Online players like Amazon also present a big challenge.