French retailer Carrefour rings up loss in 2017

Carrefour, the world’s second-largest retailer, said its operating profit fell for the second straight year, as earnings dropped sharply in its core French market. (Reuters)

PARIS: Carrefour said Wednesday it fell into a loss last year as competition among retailers in France intensified and which reinforced the need to push forward with an overhaul it announced last month.
Penalized by exceptional items, including costs related to an old chain of stores in France, the food and goods retailer said it suffered a net loss of 531 million euros ($649 million).
Without exceptional items Carrefour would have earned 773 million euros, but that is still a drop of 25 percent from the equivalent figure for 2016.
Sales growth slowed and its operating margin narrowed as well last year.
“The 2017 results that we are presenting today demonstrate the necessity of implementing without delay Carrefour’s transformation plan,” chief executive Alexandre Bompard said in a statement.
Last month Bompard unveiled an overhaul that will see thousands of job cuts, including some 2,400 at its French operations. Operations are also to be streamlined and product offerings refreshed including more organic produce.
Carrefour, which was the world’s second-biggest retailer at the start of the century after US giant Wal-Mart, has since slipped to ninth position, according to the Deloitte consultancy, having been overtaken by the likes of Amazon and Costco.
Sales rose by 3 percent last year to 88.24 billion euros. On a like-for-like basis, however, the growth rate slid to 1.6 percent from 3 percent in 2016.