Believe in change. The distributor Auchan (ELO) had a “difficult” year in 2023, with net losses of 379 million euros, but it has high expectations after the acquisition of the Casino stores and a planned purchasing alliance with other firms.
Auchan’s chief financial officer, Ludovic Delcloy, acknowledged on Thursday that the group had gone through a “difficult year in a difficult context.” ELO, which brings together Auchan and the real estate activities of NHood and Ceetrus, fell into the red. Its income from ordinary activities, equivalent to its turnover, fell by 1.7%, to 32.9 billion euros, despite the price increase that inflates distributors’ sales.
Inflation and war in Ukraine
Auchan provided two main elements of explanation. Present in Russia and Ukraine, Auchan has experienced “a clear slowdown in traffic” in its stores, Ludovic Delcloy said at a press conference in Paris. His position regarding the maintenance of activity in these two countries has not changed, he also clarified.
In addition, inflation, which has had a significant impact on the distributor’s fixed costs and consumer behavior. Auchan recorded, in particular, a reduction in volumes sold in the food sector, with a return to “2018 consumption levels in France”, according to the financial director. The group, however, wanted to be confident in the future, in particular by purchasing numerous stores from its competitor Casino in France.
alliance for purchase
Auchan bought 70 supermarkets, 26 hypermarkets and 2 units in Casino, focusing on “regions with economic and demographic growth”, particularly the Mediterranean shore, the Rhône-Alpes region and the Ile-de-France. He plans to integrate them “for the summer,” closing some of them for up to three weeks to transform them.
The other major operation, also carried out with Casino but also with Intermarché, the third distributor in France behind E.Leclerc and Carrefour, is a purchasing alliance project that will be carried out in the very long term: ten years, Auchan confirmed on Thursday, that a lot of time in this type of operations.
The objective is, according to the North brand, “to allow each group to improve their costs and sales prices”, potentially through a “purchase negotiation” of products from the big brands, but also “purchase of non-commercial products, energy or white label manufacturing”. products.
Source: BFM TV
