SUPERMARKETS: The Casino group is no longer in exclusive negotiations with Aldi for the acquisition of Leader price
The 700 Leader Price stores are still for sale. And contrary to what had been announced in January, the Aldi chain is not the only interested in this acquisition, according to information from Business Insider.
In September 2019, the German hard discounter entered into exclusive negotiations with Casino for the takeover of the Leader Price supermarket park. The amount of the transaction was estimated at more than 400 million euros at the time. In January, we learned that the two parties had agreed on an amount of 750 million.
Objective: to go beyond Lidl
The Casino group would now have more choices to sell Leader Price, which it became the owner in 1997. Since December 2019, other players have “shown interest” in the store base and “have had access to information from the disposal, ”says Business Insider. Aldi and Casino are still in negotiations.
A decision could also fall within a few weeks. The expectation comes from “the complexity [of the file] linked to the different statuses of the 700 Leader Price stores”. If Aldi, which has around 900 points of sale in France, concludes this purchase, it could catch up with Lidl, its competitor. In 2019, the German distributor’s market share represented 2.4% compared to 5.9% for Lidl, which has 1,500 stores in the territory.
