It’s done. One year after the announcement made to the financial markets, the distributor Carrefour announced on Monday, July 1, that it had officially acquired the Cora and Match stores in France from the Belgian Delhaize. Thanks to this transaction, the French group integrates 60 Cora hypermarkets and 115 Match supermarkets, their Provera purchasing center as well as some 22,000 employees. An operation made possible by obtaining, in mid-June, an exemption from the Competition Authority to complete this acquisition without waiting for its decision. This is now expected “by the end of the first quarter of 2025”, according to Carrefour.
While the points of sale are mainly located in the Grand Est and Nord regions of France, two Cora stores are located in Brittany, in Pacé (35), near Rennes, and Saint-Jouan-des-Guérets (35). The first employs 230 people, the second around 150. Like the others, they will come under the Carrefour banner “before the end of 2024”, explains the retail giant. “It will happen fairly quickly”, indicates Cyrille Lechevestrier, CFTC central union delegate (majority) at Cora and employee in Pacé. The change of brand will only be permanent if the Competition Authority does not ask Carrefour to sell its two Breton stores, which seems unlikely, according to a source in the case.
Carrefour products at Cora in September
In a press release, Carrefour indicates that “from the start of the school year in September”, its products will be available at Cora and Match, whose brand (absent in the West) will be retained. According to Carrefour’s boss, Alexandre Bompard, “from October, each Cora store that changes brand” will lower prices “by at least 10% on nearly 3,000 products” sold. According to the CFTC delegate, “Carrefour will put its distributor brands on the shelves where Cora does not have any. And where there are some, Carrefour will sell off the stocks and wait for the end of the contracts”.
In terms of jobs, the stores should be spared from possible job cuts, which is not the case for the support functions and logistics of Cora and Match. “For the moment, Carrefour has not made any statement,” reports Cyrille Lechevestrier. As part of the operation, the group is talking about €250 million in costs related to the integration of Cora and Match and €130 million in “synergies” per year by 2027. Alexandre Bompard has promised more details on his projects “in the coming days.”
