Auchan, for a long time in difficulty, returned to the green in 2020 thanks to the sale of its activities in China to the e-commerce giant Alibaba, an operation which allowed it to generate a net profit of 678 million euros, according to reports. results published Friday.
In 2019, the holding company had suffered a loss of 1.24 billion euros.
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Like Carrefour the year before, Auchan announced in October its departure from China, where it had arrived in 1998. It sold its stake in SunArt to its Chinese partner Alibaba for 3.1 billion euros (484 hypermarkets, 150,000 employees ).
Refocused activity
For its part, the income from ordinary activities of the northern group - the equivalent of its turnover - fell 5.5% to 32.1 billion euros last year.
Some 8% of Auchan Retail's revenues were generated by “
food e-commerce
”, or 2.2 billion euros, and even 12% in France.
Income was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic which restricted travel, causing Auchan Retail's gasoline sales to fall by 1 billion euros, but also "
the rents received
" by the property company Ceetrus.
Owned by the Mulliez Family Association (AFM), Auchan Holding has refocused on two areas: distribution -Auchan Retail- and real estate with Ceetrus (walls of shopping malls, office buildings, etc.).
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Reflecting the operational performance of the group, operating income fell to 89 million euros last year against 424 million euros in 2019. The problems of its Russian subsidiary, which closed several stores, largely contributed to seal the result.
The depreciation of Ceetrus's real estate assets has also come at a cost.
At the end of December, net debt fell to 2.15 billion euros, against 3.8 billion a year earlier, again thanks to the divestiture of Chinese activities.
