PARIS (Reuters) – Europe’s largest food retailer Carrefour said it aimed for a net free cash flow of over 1.7 billion euros ($1.70 billion) and 4 billion euros in cost savings in 2026, as part of boss Alexandre Bompard’s new strategy plan to make the group more resilient amid soaring inflation.
Carrefour, ahead of an investor presentation later on Tuesday, said it was raising its annual investment target to 2.0 billion euros from 1.7 billion euros previously.
Chairman and CEO Alexandre Bompard, who took over at Carrefour in July 2017, was reappointed in May 2021 to lead for another three years.
He faces the challenge of conducting the second leg of the group’s turnaround amid an inflationary environment made worse by the war in Ukraine and without the extra financial resources that would have been on hand if two planned tie-ups last year had not failed – one with Canada’s Alimentation Couche-Tard and one with France’s Auchan.
The new plan builds on targets announced in November 2021 to spend 3 billion euros between 2022 and 2026 to step up digital commerce expansion as Carrefour looks to stay ahead of Amazon on grocery delivery.
($1 = 0.9996 euros)
(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)
