There are still three problems to be solved.

After Carrefour (China) CEO Tian Rui revealed in March that the company will plan to go public, Carrefour has announced the news of an independent listing. CEO Tian Rui said in an interview with the media, “We plan to go public in the future, and we are indeed carrying out related capital operations… Planning to go public is not purely for financing, but hopes to operate and build more transparently. A business that is more in line with market needs.”

Actually, Carrefour has long become an important piece of Suning’s “recovery”. In the past two years since being acquired by Suning, Carrefour’s performance has begun to improve, but it still cannot smooth out the huge loss loopholes in the failure of the retail supermarket market.

What kind of ambitions can Carrefour support Suning today? Why does it rely on independent listing? With the retail supermarket market entering the stage of Red Sea competition, is Carrefour’s listing really a story?

Listed as a “pit” for Suning

Carrefour’s independent listing is to fill the “pit” of Suning’s insufficient cash flow.

According to public information, Carrefour Group was established in France in 1959. It is a traditional retail company. It officially entered the Chinese market in 1995, and Carrefour China was born. Carrefour China broke the number of 100 stores in 2016 and became the largest foreign retail supermarket company at that time.

But the good times did not last long. Under the impact of giants such as Wal-Mart and Yonghui Supermarket and the after wave, Carrefour China, which had a slower online transformation, gradually stalled in the competition. King” title.

And this is not the final outcome of Carrefour China. In 2019, after being sold to Suning by the parent company for a price of 4.8 billion yuan, Carrefour’s Chinese surname was “Su” and ushered in its second life. However, not long ago, there were rumors in the market that more than 50% of Carrefour’s equity may be sold by Suning, and the acquisition was Qingdao SASAC.

Although Carrefour China’s response was untrue, Carrefour, which has reported an independent listing again, is actually Suning’s “recovery” chess piece.

First review Suning’s “selling one’s body” incident. In February this year, Suning sold 14.8 billion to Shenzhen State-owned Assets, and the main reason behind this was Suning’s insufficient cash flow. The 2020 performance forecast shows that after the deduction of non-profits, Suning’s net profit is expected to lose 6.087 billion to 6.587 billion yuan, which has been a loss for seven consecutive years.

So, in order to solve the huge funding gap, Suning urgently needs the funds to return to the blood, otherwise it will face the risk of delisting, so it can’t sell itself to Shenzhen state-owned assets. And after the sale, Suning also carried out a series of “slimming” actions for non-retail businesses, including cutting off Suning Sports.

Nowadays, Carrefour’s renewed independent listing news is also a strategy of Suning’s return to blood.Multi-capital pays attention to a financing behavior. However, can Carrefour China be favored by capital? Can it really carry the banner of listing?

Why is it listed?

According to China Business News, Carrefour CEO Tian Rui revealed in an interview with the media that “the company has carried out a series of transformations and upgrades. Among them, the offline format is more focused on the development of member stores, community quality life center stores and retail cloud stores.” /p>

In addition, the first member store planned by Carrefour will open this year. It will be remodeled on the basis of the original hypermarket. It is different from the large-scale warehousing model of Costco and Sam’s Club, which focuses on large-package products, and has a more precise Positioning.

It is also worth noting that Carrefour (China) CEO Tian Rui once said in an interview that in 2021, Carrefour will focus on the three major directions of large store empowerment, B2B empowerment and home business scale development, and open up new growth space. Collaborate with more strategic partners.

It can be seen that in the future, Carrefour China will focus on the new retail scene of “big store + small store + home”, and reform and upgrade the development of membership stores in the original hypermarket. However, looking ahead, this type of model has become a standard in the retail industry. Offline majors such as Gome, RT-Mart, and new retail giants Ali Hema and JD 7FRESH are actively empowering offline hypermarkets and connecting online and offline traffic. To tap a wider commercial value.

And what can Suning support Carrefour China?

One is that Suning owns “Suning Tesco Main Station”, “Suning Supermarket”, “Suning Buying”, “Red Boy” and “Suning Xiaodian” independent apps that can open up online traffic portals for Carrefour China; < /p>

Secondly, Suning owns more than 6,000 Suning stores in 70 cities across the country and serves more than 120 million consumers. This can be combined with Carrefour China’s supermarket users to activate Suning’s entire retail business.

But what cannot be ignored is that Carrefour is already a retail “loser” role in China, and there are still many problems to be solved

There are still three problems to be solved

(1) Many years of performance losses, loopholes are difficult to repair. According to the financial report data, 2017-2In 018, Carrefour China lost 1.099 billion yuan and 578 million yuan respectively.

Although after being acquired by Suning, the proportion of Carrefour’s home-to-home business sales in China has increased rapidly month by month. In March last year, the proportion was close to 10%, and the profit was positive for two consecutive quarters. However, the loopholes in Carrefour China’s performance losses for many years are still difficult to fill. Moreover, Suning itself is deeply mired in losses, and the two sides have a long way to go.

(2) The decline in market share, number of stores, sales volume and word-of-mouth makes it difficult for Carrefour China to return to its bright moments. In 2018, Carrefour’s market share in China dropped to 3%, which was surpassed by Yonghui Group. In addition, according to the company’s disclosed data, in 2019, Carrefour China’s sales were 31.284 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.3%; in terms of the number of stores, Carrefour China had 233 in 2019, a year-on-year decrease of 2.5%.

In addition, according to the black cat complaint data, the number of complaints about Carrefour China has reached 325. The complaints include “fruits and vegetables are not fresh and expensive”, “purchased spoiled food”, “being deceived to buy a shopping card, Transfer to others, etc.”.

Screenshot from: Black Cat Complaint

It can be seen in general that Carrefour China’s highlights are no longer, whether it is its position in the market or in the hearts of consumers, this large supermarket is gradually coming to an end.

(3) Dividends in the supermarket industry have peaked, and Carrefour China has struggled to transform under the impact of new retail. According to the data from the China Business Chain Association, the sales scale of the top 100 chain stores in 2018 was only 2.4 trillion yuan, and the total number of stores was 138,000. Among them, the operating conditions of leading enterprises in prefectures and counties were significantly better than leading enterprises in provinces, and the growth of large supermarkets was weak , Department stores struggle to survive, and convenience stores lead the way.

According to the big data of Nashi, in the first half of 2018, at least 228 listed supermarkets were closed, compared with 208 in the same period last year, a year-on-year increase of 9.62%.

It can be seen that in 2018, the growth of the supermarket industry began to peak, and it was also a wave of related business closures that hit this year. Coupled with the impact of the new retail wave, offline supermarkets have ushered in a moment of transformation, and Carrefour China, which has more pain points, will have a longer road to transformation.

Can it be listed independently?

First of all, it is certain that Carrefour China, which “sells itself” to Suning, is opening up new scenes and incremental fields. For Suning, it also complements the layout of the retail format. It will have a higher level in the future new retail battle. Bargaining chips. But what exactly can the listing bring to Carrefour China?

First, obtain financing to help Carrefour obtain wider cash flow to fill the loss loopholes. For a company to go public, it will get a good financing platform. Not only can it carry out financing before going public, it can also obtain financing through additional issuance, allotment and other channels. This is a timely rain for Suning and Carrefour China, which are now in urgent need of filling the funding gap.

Second, an opportunity to start again, an opportunity to boost brand reputation. Listing not only provides companies with better financing opportunities, but also helps companies increase their visibility. This is a good time for Carrefour China, which needs to completely get rid of its “French” status, and completely get rid of its previous reputation for foreign business. Can better penetrate the Chinese market. Although Carrefour China has sold itself to Suning, it has been affected by the status of foreign companies.

Furthermore, Suning has now formulated a brand-new strategic plan for Carrefour China, and there is no shortage of listings for the latter to start again.

No matter how you say it, these two points are exactly what Carrefour China needs to solve the urgent need. Therefore, listing is an antidote for Carrefour. However, although the antidote is good, it is difficult to get it.

First of all, the online story of Dashang Supermarket is no longer good enough. Carrefour China once revealed that in Tian Rui’s view, there are several choices in front of Carrefour China. One is a pure Internet form; the other is an Internet form that integrates industries.

So it can be seen that Carrefour China will accelerate its move towards online transformation. However, as mentioned above, under the current situation, large shopping mall companies are actively transforming online, including giants such as Yonghui Supermarket and RT-Mart; and Internet giants (Ali, JD, Tencent, etc.) have entered the game. In the hypermarket scene, it is difficult to tell the story of the online shopping mall.

Secondly, the sinking market of the retail industryIt is also difficult to conquer. Carrefour China once revealed that in the future, it will be integrated and empowered in the third- and fourth-tier markets, and output from the supply chain in first- and second-tier cities. Therefore, it can be seen that in the future, Carrefour China will focus on the sinking market. However, nowadays, Pingduoduo, Ali, JD and other e-commerce giants are all playing tricks. Carrefour China, which is mainly relying on the supermarket scene, wants to divide a sinking market. There is still difficulty.

Furthermore, among the three major development directions of “big store empowerment, B2B empowerment, and Daojia business” that Carrefour China focused on this year, Daojia’s fresh food e-commerce track also has daily fresh food, Industry giants such as Dingdong Grocery and Hema stopped there.

In general, the story told by Carrefour China is not sound enough. It has a long way to go to reform if it wants to go public independently, and it also needs to reproduce its achievements in the industry before it can win the favor of capital. However, Suning does need to package Carrefour China on the market, but it is hard to say whether its wish can be fulfilled.

Secondly, the sinking market of the retail industry is also difficult to conquer. Carrefour once revealed that in the future, it will be integrated and empowered in the third- and fourth-tier markets, and output from the supply chain in first- and second-tier cities. Therefore, it can be seen that in the future, Carrefour will target the main force in the sinking market. However, nowadays, Pingduoduo, Ali, JD and other e-commerce giants are all playing tricks. Carrefour, which mainly relies on the supermarket scene, wants to divide a sinking market. Difficulty.

Furthermore, among the three major development directions of “big store empowerment, B2B empowerment, and Daojia business” that Carrefour focused on this year, Daojia’s fresh food e-commerce track also has daily fresh food and Dingjia Industry giants such as Dongmaicai and Hema stopped there.

To sum up, the story told by Carrefour is not good enough. It has a long way to go to reform if it wants to go public independently, and it needs to re-produce its achievements in the industry to be favored by capital. However, Suning is bound to boost Carrefour’s listing, but whether its ambitions will be fulfilled is still hard to say.

Author of this article: Ye Xiaoan

The source of the article: Songguo Finance, please indicate the source for reprinting