Lidl ‘interested’ in buying 600 Casino and Monoprix stores in France

The low-cost supermarket chain Lidl wants to buy 600 Casino and Monoprix stores across France, according to French media reports.

Daily newspaper Le Monde said it had seen a letter from the German chain listing target stores it wanted to take over, consisting of 300 from each brand.

The letter was addressed to Attestor, the British investment fund set to take over the Casino group, along with French businessman Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière and Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky.

The three-member consortium plans to inject €1.2 billion into the Casino group - which also owns the Monoprix, Franprix, CDiscount and Naturalia brands - and reduce the group’s debt, estimated at €6.4 billion at the end of 2022.

Mr Kretinsky told the French economic daily Les Echos on Sunday (July 16) that “I am committed to the hyper and super[markets] and to keep as many as possible”.

While Lidl told French news site actu.fr that it did not have any comments on the letter, Attestor confirmed to AFP that the German supermarket was “interested” in taking over some of the stores owned by the Casino group but that discussions had yet to begin.

Intermarché to take over 119 stores

The Intermarché group has already agreed to take over 119 Casino stores, with 57 set to change owners by the end of 2023 and 62 to change hands within the next three years.

Read more: Intermarché set to buy more than 100 stores of French rival Casino

According to the CGT union, more stores could be sold off at a later date, but everyone involved said jobs, especially in France, will not be affected.

According to Le Monde’s article, published on Monday (18 July), other supermarket chains, including System U (owner of Super U) and Aldi, are also eyeing up Casino’s stores.

Casino has 316 Monoprix stores in France and 103 abroad, with a total of 21,000 employees, while it has 429 Casino stores in France, 26 abroad employing a total of 10,860 people.

According to the statistics website statista.com, the Casino group was the seventh biggest supermarket chain in February 2023 with 5.9% of the market share, just behind Lidl with 7.9%. The Leclerc and Carrefour chains dominate the market with 22.7% and 20.4% of the market respectively.

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