July 6 (Bloomberg) -- Carrefour SA, Europe’s biggest retailer, plans to exit Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand and is seeking offers for its operations in the Southeast Asian countries, according to four people familiar with the matter.
Carrefour, based in Paris, has approached potential buyers and may ask for bids by early September, said two of the people, who declined to be identified because the sale process isn’t public. The combined operations may fetch $800 million to $1 billion, they said. Carrefour plans to retain its units in China and Indonesia, the people said. Carrefour spokeswoman Florence Baranes-Cohen declined to comment.
The retailer will consider selling the units separately as potential buyers may not be interested in bidding for all three combined, according to two of the people. Carrefour’s Thai business may have a value of $500 million to $600 million, while the Malaysian and Singapore operations may be valued at $350 million to $400 million, the people said.
“It’s a positive move, in line with what the company has been doing,” Fabio Fazzari, an analyst at Equita Sim in Milan, said by telephone. “The new management is more focused on non- capital intensive retail. What they’ve been seeking to do for about a year now is get rid of all underperforming assets.”
Carrefour is “obliged” to listen to offers for its businesses in markets where leadership is unattainable, Chief Executive Officer Lars Olofsson told shareholders in May. Asia was Carrefour’s smallest market by sales in 2009, accounting for about 7.5 percent of the total, according to the company’s website. France was the biggest, generating 43 percent, followed by the rest of Europe at 36 percent.
Carrefour plans to open 22 hypermarkets and 140 discount stores in China this year, Olofsson said in May. The retailer also intends to add 13 stores in Indonesia, where it recently sold a 40 percent stake to Trans Corp., a unit of Para Group.
--Editors: Chitra Somayaji, Paul Jarvis.To contact the reporters on this story: Cathy Chan in Hong Kong at kchan14@bloomberg.net; Andrew Roberts in Paris at aroberts36@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Philip Lagerkranser at lagerkranser@bloomberg.net; Celeste Perri at cperri@bloomberg.net.
