French retailer Carrefour is planning an initial IPO for its Brazilian unit by the second quarter of 2016, well-informed sources told Reuters.
Carrefour expects the IPO to take place in a fresh round of stock offerings slated for late April.
The company is confident that investors will evaluate the Brazilian unit with a 25% premium over the market value of the largest rival, GPA, which amounts to R$14.5 billion (€4.30 billion). The IPO could help Carrefour gain additional financial muscle to face GPA, controlled by French rival Casino.
Carrefour has hired investment banks JPMorgan, Bank of America, Itaú Unibanco and Goldman Sachs to help with the offer.
Representatives of Carrefour did not comment on the report.
On the announcement of fourth-quarter results for 2016, earlier this month, Carrefour Group financial director Pierre-Jean Sivignon said that the IPO of the Brazilian unit is planned for 2017.
Carrefour Brazil reported 9% annual growth in same-store sales during the last quarter of 2016. If all stores are taken into consideration (including stores opened during 2016), the growth was 12.4% in the same period.
The company has been registering a growth rate of sales superior to that of GPA since Q3 2014, but the difference reached its lowest level in Q4 2016.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Branislav Pekic. Click subscribe to sign up for ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
