Casa closes 25 stores in France, looks for future synergies with Swedes

Belgian home decoration chain Casa is closing 25 shops in France, following the closure of a dozen branches in the Netherlands. The near future seems to hold no closures in store for Belgium, but the chain is looking towards synergies with other chains – like Inno.

Swedish synergies

Inno’s recent acquisition by an Icelandic-Swedish duo also brings Casa back under the spotlight: in April, Swedish businessman Ayad Al-Saffar bought the chain through his company AAS Retail, but his direct involvement proved to be short-lived. To focus fully on the impending acquisition of Inno and “to avoid all conflicts of interest”, Al-Saffar passed AAS Retail on to CCO Frank Pruijn in June.

The Swedish entrepreneur had shortly before appointed Pruijn to Casa. They know each other from their time at Kijkshop, the Dutch discount chain that Al-Saffar owned until 2015. It is now up to Pruijn to implement the outlined renewal strategy.

However, in a statement the company made clear to RetailDetail that Al-Saffar will stay on board, and even more: “Casa Holding will continue to seek collaborations with other chains belonging to Ayad Al-Saffar wherever possible in order to realise synergies.” Al-Saffar’s possessions in Sweden may be rather far away, but a hopeful and more local speculation quickly popped up: would Casa and Inno team up? “They are quite complementary chains, that could be interesting”, union leader Johan Van Loon of ACV Puls agreed.

Trust the process

The Casa management also said that the clearance sale is going very well so far, not only in terms of sales – but also in terms of getting customers back to the shops. After all, that was one of the main intentions of the stock liquidation. “The sales figures over the past few months are good and give us confidence that the path taken under AAS is the right one”, the spokesperson confirmed.

However, Casa did also announce that it would close 25 shops in France, Belgian newspaper De Tijd reports. The closures had been talked about internally for some time and the company has reached an agreement with unions in France. Further closures are not planned, neither in France nor in Belgium.

AAS Retail stresses that the stock clearance is not a sign of impending problems, but rather a “sign of investment in Casa Holding”. The owner stresses that he remains “unabated, with the same ambition and financial resources involved as a long-term shareholder” and wants to create new value for the chain.p>