- Carrefour buys former Walmart stores in Brazil

Carrefour has made an offer to takeover Grupo Big, which operates 387 grocery stores in Brazil. The offer values the company (Brazil’s third-largest food retailer with sales of US$4.51 billion in 2020) at US$1.3bn. Sellers Walmart and Advent International will jointly own 5.6% of Carrefour Brazil after the sale. Península Participações, an investment company owned by the family of Abilio Diniz, will have 7.2%. Brazil is a key market for Carrefour, which operates the highly profitable Atacadão warehouse club chain. This acquisition will result in supply-chain synergies through volume consolidation and an acceleration of e-commerce. Carrefour is now Brazil’s largest grocer by sales, ahead of GPA.