Cora cuts 250 jobs

Belgian hypermarket chain Cora is to cut one in eight jobs: the subsidiary of the Louis Delhaize group still has seven stores in Belgium, but all of them are said to be (almost) loss-making.

No forced redundancies

Management and unions have reached an agreement on the 253 terminations, without compulsory redundancies, Belgian newspaper De Tijd reports on the authority of trade union ACV Puls. The agreement was not entirely heartfelt, Elisabeth Lovecchio tells the newspaper: “The management threatened to file for bankruptcy” if they did not agree.

The new cost-cutting measure follows an earlier decision by the group to discontinue the Smatch and Match chains in Belgium. Colruyt Group bought 57 stores, Carrefour, Delhaize and Intermarché also took over some shops. Nineteen stores did not attract a new buyer, although meal shop chain Bon’Ap is taking over some property leases.

The downsizing of the Louis Delhaize group continues: last year, the group already sold its foreign Match and Smatch shops. The Luxembourg branch was sold to E.Leclerc (including the two Cora hypermarkets there), while the French and Romanian branches went to Carrefour. Cora also previously sold its foreign branches in Hungary, among others. However, the group still owns the Truffaut garden chain in France.