NEW YORK: It’s been a tough year for Alexandre Bompard. Attempts by the Carrefour SA boss to create a supermarket champion in France are proving elusive.
(Bloomberg) It’s been a tough year for Alexandre Bompard. Attempts by the Carrefour SA boss to create a supermarket champion in France are proving elusive.
Talks on a deal to tie up the publicly listed grocer with privately held rival Auchan have failed, Bloomberg reported over the weekend.
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Politics crash Couche-Tard s US$20B shopping trip to Paris
Angelina Rascouet, Sandrine Rastello, William Horobin and Ania Nussbaum, Bloomberg News
Politics torpedo Couche-Tard s deal for Carrefour VIDEO SIGN OUT
Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. founder Alain Bouchard hoped to salvage a US$20 billion offer for Carrefour SA when he arrived at the French Finance Ministry, whose headquarters juts out over the Seine like a beached aircraft carrier in eastern Paris.
After being kept waiting for a brief audience with Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, Bouchard got the message: The proposed deal was dead on arrival, torpedoed by French political opposition.
The meeting Friday capped a tumultuous week for Couche-Tard and Carrefour. Bouchard, a self-made billionaire who had transformed an obscure Canadian gas-station operator into an empire of 14,200 retail sites through acquisitions, wanted to take the next step. Buying the French grocer would have turned Couche-Tard into a global re