Two thousand three hundred and eighty-nine positions eliminated. The announcement, confirmed last Tuesday, created great concern among Auchan's 53,000 employees. The mass distribution brand wants to restructure its activity after poor results in 2023. Positions at headquarters, in stores and in warehouses are targeted by this large-scale plan.
The announcement immediately caused a wave of reactions, with several personalities recalling that the company has benefited from several public support measures since 2020. Even Prime Minister Michel Barnier said he wanted to “know” what Auchan and Michelin, which also announced a large-scale social plan, made “donated public money”.
A paradoxical result
Denouncing these future job losses, the CGT and several Insoumis deputies affirmed that Auchan had redistributed “one billion euros in dividends in 2022-2023”. This statement was repeated, slightly modified, in certain press titles, which explain for their part that Auchan received “a billion euros in dividends in 2023”, an amount which may seem paradoxical, while the Elo group, on which Auchan depends, announced a negative net result of minus 378 million euros in 2023.
The first mention of this billion euros seems to date back to March, when a CGT elected official mentioned it to our colleagues in Humanityafter a series of walkouts in the brand's stores. The unions represented in the group then protested against the percentage of collective increase (1.5%) proposed by management.
Family shareholders
Where does this figure of one billion euros come from? Did the group, in difficulty and which chose to stay in Russia despite the Russian invasion of Ukraine, really pay such an amount to its shareholders? Requested by 20 Minutesthe CGT did not follow up.
Auchan refutes such an amount to our title and explains having paid “100 million euros” in dividends in 2023. These dividends were paid on the basis of the results of the Elo group, which brings together Auchan Retail (the Auchan stores in France and internationally), New Immo Holding, the group's commercial real estate activity, and Oney, a payment activity. The particularity of this group is to have 98% family shareholders and 2% employee shareholders. In other words, the vast majority of dividends are paid to these shareholders of the Mulliez family, owners of the group.
103 million dividends in 2023
According to Elo's financial report, the group paid out 103 million euros in dividends in 2023: 99 million were paid to shareholders of the parent company and 4 paid to the interests of companies not giving control of the integrated companies . In 2022, 201 million were returned, including 198 million paid to shareholders. If the group was able to do this, it is because the results were positive in 2021 and 2022. Dividends are in fact paid on the results of the previous year. The 2023 dividends were therefore distributed based on the 2022 results.
However, this figure of one billion was perhaps calculated by adding the dividends not paid in 2022 and 2023 but those paid in 2021 and 2022. In 2021, 758 million euros were redistributed by the Elo group. Added to the 201 million that were paid the following year, in 2022, we are getting closer to the billion.
Our Fake Off section
Near 20 MinutesAuchan is already taking care to announce that dividends will not be paid in 2024. This is in any case what the law provides, which prohibits distributing dividends when the results are negative, which has was the case for the Elo group in 2023, which posted a net result of -378 million euros.
