The Cora headquarters in Seine-et-Marne is set to disappear along with the brand: Carrefour, which bought it last July, plans to close it by the end of 2025 to transfer part of the activities to Essonne , and 340 jobs are threatened.
The news was expected, Carrefour having mentioned in July a “potential for synergies” in the acquisition of the French activities of the Belgian group Louis Delhaize. The No. 2 in French distribution announced Tuesday a “reorganization project”presented to the social partners and “open to consultation of the CSEs”.
Il “plans the elimination of 340 positions on the Croissy-Beaubourg site”a town in Seine-et-Marne where Cora had its head office. The closure of this site “will take place by the end of 2025”while Carrefour ensures that 120 positions will be created at the same time at its Ile-de-France headquarters in Massy, Essonne.
The distributor ensures that “each employee of the Croissy-Beaubourg site will be offered at least one reclassification offer on one of the group’s sites in Ile-de-France, either at headquarters (notably in Massy) or in stores”.
Former Cora employees who do not accept this reclassification will be entitled to “measures to support external mobility which will have been negotiated with the social partners as part of an Employment Protection Plan (PSE)”says the distribution giant again.
Carrefour bought the French operations of Belgian group Louis Delhaize in July, which employed 22,000 people in the country, on the basis of an enterprise value of 1.05 billion euros.
This operation, from which Carrefour expects a gain of more than 2 points in the very competitive food distribution market dominated by E.Leclerc, concerns in particular 60 Cora hypermarkets, in the process of being transferred to the Carrefour brand, and 115 Match supermarkets, which will retain their taught.
“Takeover of Promodès”
The operation has not yet been authorized by the Competition Authority, which has jurisdiction over merger control and whose decision is awaited by the brand. “by the end of the first quarter of 2025”. But Carrefour announced in mid-June that it had obtained a waiver to carry out this acquisition before this decision.
The distributor estimates “limited competition issues” because of “the strong geographic complementarity of the two groups”Cora and Match being well established in the north-eastern quarter of France where Carrefour is less present, and “benefit of the operation” pour “the consumer”.
A Carrefour hypermarket in Villeneuve-la-Garenne, in Haurs-de-Seine, March 29, 2023 / Thomas SAMSON / AFP/Archives
Tuesday’s press release further specifies that “the staff of the headquarters functions of Val d’Yerres, Nancy, Metz, are not affected by this project” grouping, which also concerns Cora’s purchasing center, Provera.
This acquisition, “the most important for Carrefour since the acquisition of Promodès” in 1999, says CEO Alexandre Bompard, will lead to the disappearance of the Cora brand. Stores under its name began to adopt the Carrefour name, in three waves throughout the month of October.
During this “toggle”hypermarkets will remain open, Carrefour specified at the end of September.
