Turkey's Sabancı Holding takes majority stake in CarrefourSA

PARIS - Reuters

Sabancı Holding has become the majority shareholder in CarrefourSA, which operates 28 hypermarkets and 215 supermarkets in Turkey, after the sale. REUTERS photo

Carrefour, Europe’s largest retailer, has said it is staying in Turkey but is selling a 12 percent stake in local venture CarrefourSA to joint venture partner Sabancı Holding for 60 million euros.

After the deal, expected to close by July, Sabancı will become majority shareholder with a 50.8 percent stake while Carrefour will retain a 46.2 percent stake, the statement said.

The move ends months of suspense over the French retailer’s plans in Turkey, a country it entered in 1993, but where it lagged bigger local players such as BIM and Migros Ticaret.

“Sabancı Holding will thus lead the next stage of development, putting its knowledge of the country and the market at the service of its joint venture with Carrefour,” the statement said.

Carrefour initially held 58.2 percent of CarrefourSA, Sabancı 38.8 percent, with the remaining 2.2 percent publicly traded.

Long-standing dispute

Last year Sabancı had said it was not happy with the performance of CarrefourSA, which operates 28 hypermarkets and 215 supermarkets in Turkey, generating sales of 1.1 billion euros. Carrefour had said it was reviewing the situation but had not given any steer as to whether it would stay or exit Turkey.

Even the Turkish conglomerate Sabancı Holding had given an ultimatum to its partner retail giant Carrefour, on March this year to come up with a solution to the uncertainties over their joint company CarrefourSA, saying it would take legal action otherwise, daily Hürriyet reported.

Then, Spanish supermarket group Dia, which partnered with Sabancı Holding in DiaSA, annnounced on April 19 that it had agreed to sell its Turkish business, including the 40 percent of the DiaSA shares owned by Sabancı Holding, to the Turkish business Yıldız Holding.

“We want to grow in retail industry. We take a big step on our way to do with latest agreement with Carrefour. Sabancı Holding now has the majority stake in CarrefourSA,” said Zafer Kurtul, Sabancı Holding CEO, by a public statement on April 30.

Carrefour, the world’s largest retailer after American Wal-Mart, sold 2.8 billion euros of assets last year, withdrawing from Greece, Colombia and Indonesia to raise cash to revive its ailing European hypermarket business.