2023-07-03 17:30:49
A Pao de Acucar Group store in Brazil. CASINO GROUP
Groupe Casino should soon leave Brazil. Three days after having sold its stake in the capital of the Assai Atacadista brand, local wholesale champion, the Saint-Etienne group announced, on June 26, that it wanted to get rid of its last asset in the country: Grupo Pao de Açucar (GPA), of which he holds 40.9% of the shares.
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Founded in 1948 by Valentim Diniz, a Portuguese immigrant, GPA is today the second largest distribution network in Brazil, with 19 brands, more than 700 stores and 37,699 employees.
Groupe Casino’s decision comes within the framework of a vast restructuring plan aimed at overcoming serious financial difficulties. Strangled by a debt of 6.4 billion euros, it plans to sell its brands in Latin America, which represent half of its sales (17.8 billion euros in 2022) and employ three quarters of its workforce (approximately 150,000 people). The Casino group should therefore also separate from the Colombian group Exito, present in Colombia (492 stores), Uruguay (96 stores) and Argentina (33 stores).
Market enthusiasm
In Brazil, the sale of GPA arouses the enthusiasm of the markets: ” That’s excellent news “, judge Danielle Lopes, financial analyst and partner of the firm Nord Research, which advises small investors. Since June 26, GPA’s share value has climbed 14%. “The market understands very well that the group needs a new direction. »
Many feared that the Groupe Casino crisis would damage the reputation of the Brazilian giant. Valued on the stock exchange at around 5 billion reais (970 million euros), “GPA has always had a very good image”, explains Mauricio Morgado, coordinator of a distribution research center at the Getulio Vargas Foundation. GPA’s flagship brand, Pao de Açucar supermarkets, is particularly popular with affluent consumers in large cities. More expensive than most of its competitors, its success is based on “its modernity and quality service”.
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Who is going to get this jewel of Brazilian mass distribution? Some place Abilio Diniz, son of the founder of GPA and a former close friend of ex-president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022), at the top of the list of interested parties. In 2012, the businessman was ousted from the board of directors of his own company by Jean-Charles Naouri, CEO and majority shareholder of Casino, after attempting a merger between GPA and the Carrefour Brazil group. The Brazilian billionaire then sold his GPA shares to invest in his rival: today, Abilio Diniz owns 8.4% of Carrefour Group and 12% of its Brazilian subsidiary, the country’s main private employer.
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