ESMagazine reports that the Belgian supermarket group Louis Delhaize has sold its 175 French Carrefour stores. What does the future hold for the abandoned Belgian branch?

A good deal for Carrefour

Carrefour paid 1.05 billion euros for the 60 Cora hypermarkets and 115 Match enseigne supermarkets, whose 24,000 employees generate 5.2 billion euros in revenue – more than two-thirds of Louis Delhaize's group sales. Carrefour also acquires the real estate properties of 55 hypermarkets and 77 supermarkets.

For Carrefour, it is said to be a very interesting deal as there is a "very strong geographical complementarity": Cora and Match are particularly strong in the northern regions closer to the Belgian border, where Carrefour is "relatively weak".

Synergies

Carrefour hopes that the merger will generate 110 million euros in annual synergy benefits. Half of these should come from optimizing omnichannel costs, and the other half due to better optimization of distribution and marketing costs.

French competition authorities still need to approve the acquisition. If they do, the two involved retailers hope to finalize the acquisition by next summer.

The end of Louis Delhaize?

For Louis Delhaize's Belgian business, the takeover is another serious blow. The stores have had weak performances for years and have already faced multiple restructuring plans.

Match (and its "younger brother" Smatch) were supposed to disappear completely from Belgium, but that decision was reversed in April.

Furthermore, many economies of scale will be lost: not only is the French subsidiary leaving the group, but in April, Carrefour also acquired the Romanian subsidiary. Could the billion euros associated with this acquisition ultimately be the salvation of the Belgian stores?