Carrefour swallows Cora and Match and announces price cuts

Capital Video: Carrefour swallows Cora and Match and announces price reductions

It took almost a year for Carrefour to finally finalize the acquisition of the Match and Cora stores from the Belgian group Louis Delhaize. The deal, announced in mid-July 2023, concerns 60 Cora hypermarkets and 115 Match supermarkets, mainly located in the Grand Est and Nord regions, territories little covered by Carrefour, for a value of 1.05 billion euros. To finalize the transaction, Carrefour obtained an exemption from the French Competition Authority.

Thanks to this purchase, Carrefour has consolidated its position as the second player in the French distribution landscape with a market share of 21.9%. Enough to get closer to the leader Leclerc with its 24.3% market share.

Cora stores to be transformed into Carrefour by the end of 2024

Will consumers, accustomed to frequenting Cora and Match stores, see any changes? Yes, and not the least! In a press release published on Monday, July 1, the group chaired by Alexandre Bompard announced the disappearance of the Cora brand. The 60 Cora hypermarkets will come under the Carrefour banner by the end of 2024. Match, for its part, will not change its name. Another benefit for customers: the group promises price reductions, without giving any specific figures, and the arrival of Carrefour-branded products in the former Cora and Match stores.

For Carrefour, this merger also allows it to achieve synergies with its existing network.The potential for synergies is revised upwards for an additional contribution to EBITDA (gross operating surplus) of 130 million euros annualized by 2027 (compared to 110 million euros previously announced)“, indicates the distributor. To reach this threshold, Carrefour is counting on optimizing its costs, in particular by making savings on purchases and advertising.

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The largest acquisition in 20 years

The year 2024 has been rich in investments for Carrefour. With the acquisition of Cora and Match, it is carrying out its largest operation in France in 20 years. Added to this deal is the acquisition of 31 Casino stores in early 2024, which has sold all of its hypermarkets and supermarkets. Do these recent negotiations mark the beginning of the inevitable concentration of the distribution sector in France?We have a lot of brands, unlike other countries. Small entities, which occupy 2 to 3% of the market, do not have the critical size to survive in the current context, nor the investment capacity to renovate their stores.“, Frank Rosenthal, a retail marketing consultant, told us last July. The Match brand accounts for 0.7% of the French distribution market while Cora accounts for 1.7%. In the long term, “there will only be 5 or 6 actors left“, added a distribution expert at the same time.