Casino announced on Thursday that it aims to return to financial balance by 2026, while investing around 1.2 billion euros over four years to reorganize its supermarket fleet, as part of the announcements of its new strategic plan. Renewal 2028″.
The seventh largest supermarket group in France in terms of market share, Casino came close to ceasing payments last year after years of acquisitions financed by debt.
“The group will focus on three key markets: everyday food shopping, take-out catering and new daily life services,” said Philippe Palazzi, general manager, in a press release. “Our ambition is to reinvent local commerce to meet the new expectations of consumers: the right product and the right service at the right time, close to home, with a smile and attention, and prices adapted to everyone.”
New services
Casino intends to refocus on its local convenience stores but also become a major player in take-out catering, particularly in large urban areas, while offering new daily life services, such as cashback (return of change against payment in bank card) or equipment rental, etc.
Casino also indicated its intention to invest around 1.2 billion euros over four years, with the aim of reaching a business volume of around 15 billion euros in 2028, an increase of around 1 .9 billion euros compared to 2023.
In major financial difficulties, Casino was taken over at the start of the year by Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky as part of a large financial restructuring involving store sales and job cuts.
The new strategic plan of the Saint-Etienne distributor, which owns the Franprix and Monoprix brands (but also Cdiscount, Naturalia, Spar and Vival) should allow Casino to save around 600 million euros cumulatively over the period 2025-2028 thanks to the efforts rationalization and cost reductions.
“Rationalize” the store network
During a presentation to journalists Thursday morning, general manager Philippe Palazzi said he wanted to continue to “rationalize the store base” by closing sites deemed unprofitable and switching integrated stores to franchises.
Philippe Palazzi also declared that he had started to “reposition” prices in stores, and discuss with franchise store managers the prices at which the group sells the products to them.
The objective is to achieve free cash flow before financial expenses and dividends in balance in 2026, the group indicated in its press release.
Since the start of the year, Casino shares have lost 97.6% of their value.
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