Brazil: Carrefour retreats
Carrefour and its major shareholders still have progress to make to master the subtleties of samba. The merger of the Brazilian subsidiary of global distributor with the second casino, Grupo Pao de Acucar (GPA), is abandoned.
Scaffold for months in the back of its local partner Casino Abilio Diniz (President and owner of 21% of GPA), with the support of BNDES, the Brazilian equivalent of the Deposit, the project would have allowed Crossroads take control of all activities involving the two Brazilian groups. The company, known as Pao de Acucar Novo, would have made 30 billion euros in sales and held 32.3% of the local market, against 11.1% for the U.S. WalMart.
Las.Faced with fierce opposition from Casino, which supports the development of this project is contrary to the shareholders' agreement binding Abilio Diniz, BNDES announced its withdrawal on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday. While Diniz seeks private investors to substitute for Brazilian BNDES, he lost some of its political support.
This halted the project is mostly a failure for Carrefour, which had the most to gain. The group chose to take advantage of the disagreement between Diniz and Casino to join in a risky project, rather than seeing the Brazilian partner with WalMart. If successful, Carrefour could forget his many disappointments. The group is not out of a serious area of turbulence in its domestic market, putting pressure on its outstanding CEO Lars Olofsson and its principal shareholders, Groupe Arnault and Colony Capital payday advance lenders.The latter, entered the capital of the retailer in March 2007, when the action was worth 53 euros, have increased the project, or attempted to bounce the stock price, which dropped by half since: sale of Brazilian and Chinese subsidiaries , public offerings of real estate branch, split Dia. In vain.
Brazil lost the battle has also cast a cruel light on the performance of Carrefour in the country, its first growth opportunities ahead of China. Abilio Diniz revealed that the operating profitability of Carrefour Brazil was 1%, seven times less than that of GPA. Casino and pointed the loss of market share of hypermarkets in Brazil, for the benefit of supermarkets and convenience stores.If its chain of wholesale stores Atacadao is a success, Carrefour, local leader, sees its hypermarkets suffer against those of Extra, a subsidiary of ABM.
Overconfidence
After 550 million of provisions recorded by Carrefour last year as a result of accounting fraud at its Brazilian subsidiary, the latter saw his image tarnished again. The withdrawal of the BNDES also shows that Carrefour had underestimated the political power relations in Brazil, or too trusted Abilio Diniz …
If new proposed combination with GPA must be submitted to the board of Carrefour in the coming months, it would still be opposed to casino, and no political support in Brazil. This time, the independent directors of Carrefour might well make their voices heard.