Carrefour

M&A Activity • Jul 12, 2023

Carrefour reaffirms its leading posion in food retail in France with the acquision of Cora and Match banners

Carrefour announces that it has entered into an agreement today with the Louis Delhaize group to acquire the Cora and Match banners in France, reaffirming its leading posion in the French food retail market 1 .

The Cora and Match banners operate 60 hypermarkets and 115 supermarkets respecvely and employ c.24,000 people in France. They generated net sales of €5.2bn in 2022 (€4.3bn excluding petrol) and EBITDA of €189m. The acquired stores present a very strong geographical complementarity with Carrefour, with parcularly strong market share in Eastern and Northern France, where Carrefour has lile presence. The transacon includes the acquision of the real estate of 55 hypermarkets and 77 supermarkets.

The transacon, which is expected to close in the summer of 2024, values the acquired assets on the basis of an enterprise value of €1.05bn; it will be accreve in terms of adjusted EPS from year one.

The integraon of the Cora and Match stores offers significant potenal for synergies, esmated at €110m in EBITDA on an annual basis 3 years aer the effecve compleon of the transacon. The associated integraon costs, spread over 2 years, are esmated at €200 million (investments and operang expenses).

In parallel, Carmila, in which Carrefour has a 36% stake, has reached an agreement with the Louis Delhaize group to acquire its 93% holding in Galimmo, which owns 52 shopping galleries adjacent to Cora stores.

Alexandre Bompard, Chairman and Chief Execuve Officer, declared : "With the acquision of the Cora and Match banners, Carrefour is announcing its first major acquision in France in more than twenty years and consolidates its leading posion in food retail in its domesc market. This agreed transacon will allow Carrefour to connue the adventure started in France by the Bouriez family and the Louis Delhaize group, with which our Group shares a common culture, history and values. I want to pay tribute to them, as well as to the Cora and Match teams, whose experse, commitment and entrepreneurial culture will be an asset for our Group. This transacon also demonstrates our ability to pursue our external growth strategy through targeted acquisions, providing market share and synergies, thanks to the transformaon iniated 6 years ago and the strength of our balance sheet. The Carrefour Group will be able to provide the acquired stores with a powerful commercial and operaonal model, very complementary to Cora and Match's know-how, thanks to its own brand, digital acceleraon and its purpose, the food transion for all."

¹Combined market share of 22.5% for Carrefour Group + Cora + Match in 2022 (cumulated P13), according to Kantar

The Carrefour and Louis Delhaize groups are long-me partners; they share strong historical and cultural es: the first Cora store, opened in Garges-lès-Gonesses in 1966, was previously one of the first Carrefour franchisees. More recently, Carrefour and Cora joined forces in purchasing. Finally, on April 27, Carrefour announced it was acquiring Cora's acvies in Romania, which should be effecve by the end of 2023.

Strategic raonale

The acquision of Cora and Match enables the Group to reaffirm its leading posion in the French market, in a context in which opportunies for transacons involving quality assets are rare. The Cora and Match store network benefits from excellent locaons and offers strong geographical complementarity with that of Carrefour. Under the impetus of the Louis Delhaize group, Cora and Match have developed operaonal know-how and recognized concepts. These stores will benefit from all of the Carrefour Group's strengths, in parcular steady momentum of market share gains for more than two years, leading brands, a recognized range of Carrefour-branded products, demonstrated operaonal excellence in terms of price and promoon, and a strong presence in e-commerce, both in Click & Collect and home delivery. These elements have enabled Carrefour to significantly improve its commercial momentum and the profitability of its acvies in France over the past 6 years, parcularly in hypermarkets. In addion, the acquired stores will be part of the implementaon of the strategic iniaves of the Carrefour 2026 plan and will benefit in parcular from the "Maxi" compeveness and producvity method.

Synergies

The pooling of the respecve strengths of Carrefour, Cora and Match will be strongly value-creang, with an amount of annual synergies esmated at €110m in EBITDA, 3 years aer the effecve compleon of the transacon.

• Half of them will be linked to the opmizaon of commercial performance: development of omnichannel, opmizaon of non-food acvies, increasing share of own-brand, logiscs and purchasing synergies;
• The remaining half will come from pooling distribuon costs, including purchases of goods not for resale and markeng & adversing expenses.

Transacon structure

The acquision will be made 100% in cash, based on an enterprise value of €1.05bn, reflecng an EV/EBITDA acquision mulple post synergies of around 4.2x, which is strongly accreve based on Carrefour Group's current valuaon.

Next steps

The transacon remains subject notably to the approval of the French compeon authority as well as to the usual condions. Given the strong geographical complementarity of the two groups, Carrefour considers compeon issues to be limited. Closing is expected in the summer of 2024.

Appendix 1 – 2022 key figures

	Cora	Match	Cora + Match
Format	Hypermarkets	Supermarkets	-
Number of stores	60	115	175
Average selling area	9,600 sqm	1,600 sqm	-
Net sales (incl. petrol)	€3.9bn	€1.3bn	€5.2bn
Net sales (excl. petrol)	€3.2bn	€1.1bn	€4.3bn
(1) EBITDA	€132m	€57m	€189m
EBITDA margin	4.1%	5.0%	4.4%

Note: (1) EBITDA pre-IFRS 16

About Carrefour Group

With a mul-format network of over 14,000 stores in 43 countries, the Carrefour Group is one of the world's leading food retailers. Carrefour posted sales of €90.8 billion in 2022. Its integrated store network employs more than 335,000 people who help to make Carrefour the world leader in the food transion for all, by offering quality food every day, accessible everywhere and at a reasonable price. In total, more than 500,000 people work under Carrefour banners worldwide. For more informaon, visit www.carrefour.com, or find us on Twier (@news\_carrefour) and LinkedIn (Carrefour).

Contacts

Investor Relaons Sébasen Valenn, Anthony Guglielmo, Louise Brun Tél : +33 (0)1 64 50 79 81 Shareholder Relaons Tél : 0 805 902 902 (toll-free in France) Group Communicaons Tél : +33 (0)1 58 47 88 80