British and Japanese retail giants along with local operators are in an auction battle to take over the Southeast Asian business of French supermarket chain Carrefour, reports said yesterday.
Britain’s Tesco is among more than 10 bidders for Carrefour’s assets in the region, which total 61 stores in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, the Financial Times (FT) said.
Singapore-based retail group Dairy Farm and French retailer Casino are also in the bidding, but US titan Wal-Mart has not entered the race, the FT said.
Company executives from Carrefour Singapore and Dairy Farm were not immediately available to comment. Japan’s Aeon group also declined to comment on a report in the Nikkei Shimbun business daily that it hoped to expand into Southeast Asia via the Carrefour auction to make up for sluggish consumer demand at home.
Aeon acquired Carrefour’s Japanese operations in 2005, five years after Carrefour entered Japan.
Malaysia’s deputy trade minister Mukhriz Mahathir had said in August that Carrefour was believed to be looking to divest its business in the country, where it has 19 stores.
Carrefour also has 40 stores in Thailand and two in Singapore.
The French retail giant on Tuesday said it made a net profit of 82 million euros (US$104 million) in the first half, after a loss in the same period of last year.
At the results announcement, Carrefour chief executive Lars Olofsson refused to comment on the group’s plans in Asia amid speculation that he wants to raise money to fund an ambitious revamp of hypermarkets in Europe.
Tesco, the world’s third-biggest retailer behind Wal-Mart and Carrefour, has also declined to comment on the Asian auction. The British group has been steadily expanding in the region, notably through smaller “express” stores.
Carrefour’s Web site says international markets account for 57 percent of the group’s total sales and that future growth will likely come from China, Indonesia, Brazil, Poland and Turkey.
The FT said Carrefour has no intention of abandoning China, which accounts for 70 percent of the group’s stores in Asia.
It also plans to remain in Indonesia and Taiwan, the report said.
CROSS-STRAIT COLLABORATION: The new KMT chairwoman expressed interest in meeting the Chinese president from the start, but she’ll have to pay to get in Beijing allegedly agreed to let Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) around the Lunar New Year holiday next year on three conditions, including that the KMT block Taiwan’s arms purchases, a source said yesterday. Cheng has expressed interest in meeting Xi since she won the KMT’s chairmanship election in October. A source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a consensus on a meeting was allegedly reached after two KMT vice chairmen visited China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Song Tao (宋濤) in China last month. Beijing allegedly gave the KMT three conditions it had to
‘BALANCE OF POWER’: Hegseth said that the US did not want to ‘strangle’ China, but to ensure that none of Washington’s allies would be vulnerable to military aggression Washington has no intention of changing the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Saturday, adding that one of the US military’s main priorities is to deter China “through strength, not through confrontation.” Speaking at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, Hegseth outlined the US Department of Defense’s priorities under US President Donald Trump. “First, defending the US homeland and our hemisphere. Second, deterring China through strength, not confrontation. Third, increased burden sharing for us, allies and partners. And fourth, supercharging the US defense industrial base,” he said. US-China relations under
The Chien Feng IV (勁蜂, Mighty Hornet) loitering munition is on track to enter flight tests next month in connection with potential adoption by Taiwanese and US armed forces, a government source said yesterday. The kamikaze drone, which boasts a range of 1,000km, debuted at the Taipei Aerospace and Defense Technology Exhibition in September, the official said on condition of anonymity. The Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology and US-based Kratos Defense jointly developed the platform by leveraging the engine and airframe of the latter’s MQM-178 Firejet target drone, they said. The uncrewed aerial vehicle is designed to utilize an artificial intelligence computer
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday decided to shelve proposed legislation that would give elected officials full control over their stipends, saying it would wait for a consensus to be reached before acting. KMT Legislator Chen Yu-jen (陳玉珍) last week proposed amendments to the Organic Act of the Legislative Yuan (立法院組織法) and the Regulations on Allowances for Elected Representatives and Subsidies for Village Chiefs (地方民意代表費用支給及村里長事務補助費補助條例), which would give legislators and councilors the freedom to use their allowances without providing invoices for reimbursement. The proposal immediately drew criticism, amid reports that several legislators face possible charges of embezzling fees intended to pay
RSS