Groupe Casino
Casino Group or Casino Guichard-Perrachon is a French mass-market retail group. It was founded on 2 August 1898 by Geoffroy Guichard under the corporate name Guichard-Perrachon & Co.
Casino Group is the source of many innovations, such as the first distributor's brand in 1901, the first self-service store in 1948, or even the display of a sell-by date on consumer products in 1959.
Casino Group operates across all food and non-food formats: supermarkets, convenience stores, discount stores, and wholesale stores. Casino Group owns brands such as Monoprix, Franprix, Cdiscount, Vival, and Casino. Internationally, through its franchise subsidiary ExtenC, it also operates the Géant and Leader Price brands.
As of 2017 Casino Group, managed by Jean-Charles Naouri, was quoted on the Paris Stock Exchange and had total revenue of €37.8 billion. As of November 2021, the group has a market capitalization of approximately €2.35 billion.
Between June 2023 and October 2024, in the grip of a financial crisis linked to its debt, the group closed or sold all of its Casino supermarkets and Géant hypermarkets in France to competitors. During this crisis, Casino and Géant brands are also gradually being replaced by competitors in various countries.
The group employs 28,200 people in April 2024.
In its results for the first half of 2024, the Casino group announced that the Leader Price franchise activities are part of the discontinued operations.
From 2024 a consortium led by Daniel Kretinsky will own and control 53.7% of Casino's share capital.
History
Casino's genesis (1892–1898)
Geoffroy Guichard was born on 27 July 1867 in Feurs, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. His parents were the owners of a retail grocery business in Saint-Étienne. In 1889, he married Antonia Perrachon and became a partner with Paul Perrachon, his cousin-in-law, who had been the owner of a shop in the region for around ten years. Geoffroy Guichard became the sole business owner in 1892. The store, located rue des Jardins, was originally the Lyrical Casino of Saint-Étienne. Closed in the 1850s, the Lyrical Casino was transformed into a retail grocery store in the 1860s. Geoffroy Guichard grew the grocery store to turn it into a general food store, based on the Felix Potin model. In April 1898, due to the success of the concept, Geoffroy Guichard opened the first branch in Veauche, in Loire.The beginnings of Casino (1898–1904)
On 2 August 1898, Geoffroy Guichard founded with his father-in-law « la Société des Magasins du Casino » and « Établissements économiques d’alimentation under the corporate name Guichard-Perrachon & Co. In total, 77 people subscribed to the capital of the new company. The Guichard spouses owned 35% of the company's capital. As from 1898, warehouses and factories were built in Saint-Étienne. Damaged by a fire in 1900, they were rebuilt reaching a total surface of 16 000 m². In the factories, Casino baked bread, produced oil and chocolate, roasted coffee, distilled and produced homemade liquors. An important wine business was also developed. Nearly 40 branches were opened in 1899. In September 1904, the 100th branch was opened in Lamastre in Ardèche and in July 1905, the 21st concession.The development of social action (1904–1923)
In the first quarter of the 20th century, the company developed a social action plan dedicated to its employees, with, in 1904, the launch of an insurance fund, the creation of a health service in 1905, benefits for large families and a birth premium in 1910 or even child benefits and profit sharing for all employees as from 1916. In 1912, Casino created the Sports branch Casino employees’ Social Club, a sports organization in accordance with its sports corporatism policy. The Social club opened its football section in July 1919 alongside other disciplines such as athletics or basketball. More commonly referred to as AS Casino, the Social club became "l’Association Sportive Stéphanoise" in 1927 then "l’Association Sportive de Saint-Étienne" in 1933. In 1923, in celebration of its 25th anniversary, Casino put in place a pension fund which ensured the security of employees leaving the company. The Casino share was quoted on the Stock Exchange as from 1910.Industrial development after WWI (1920–1940)
As from 1920, Casino continued to grow by creating factories and warehouses. In 1929, the company counted nearly 1000 branches and over 500 outlets. At that time, Casino was present across 28 districts. In 1923, Geoffroy Guichard became administrator of « L’Épargne de Toulouse », which had similar operations to Casino's with around 300 branches located in the South-West of France. Geoffroy Guichard took permanent control of the company in 1925. Geoffroy Guichard announced the transfer of the company to his children during the general meeting of October 1929. At that time, Casino counted around 2000 employees. After the death of Geoffroy Guichard in May 1940, Mario Guichard became President of the executive board. He was surrounded by his brothers Jean, Georges, Paul et Pierre Guichard, and his brother-in-law François Kemlin.In June 1941, François Kemlin created a network of clandestine activities. It benefited from important material resources made available by the company. These actions ranged from making packages/parcels and sending letters to creating files to enable the escape of War prisoners. Bombings during the War damaged many factories, warehouses and offices. Some even had to close down.
The Great innovations (1940–1950)
In 1947, Pierre Guichard took a trip to North America to observe growing trends. He discovered the self-service store concept. A year later, Casino opened its first self-service store in Saint-Étienne. Over a period of 10 years, 500 branches adopted this new sales principle. In 1950, one of the first cooling systems was put in place in distribution. There again, it was a type of innovation observed in the US. Gradually, warehouses were equipped with cooling chambers and refrigerated coolers. In 1959, Casino was the first distributor to display a sell-by date on its products. This was made compulsory in December 1984 with the use-by date. Already in 1928, the Group had put in place "calendar displays" on product packaging, as a quality guarantee.The development of new formats (1950–1990)
In 1957, Casino opened its first supermarket in Nice, under the brand Nica. The store, which was totally self-service, offered both food and non-food products. The first supermarket with the Casino name opened in May 1960 in Grenoble. A few months later, four new stores opened in Nice, Saint-Étienne, Firminy and Lyon. The first two Paris supermarkets opened in 1970 in Saint-Denis and Bagneux. In March 1970, the first Géant Casino hypermarket opened its doors in Marseille. It was then the biggest store in France with a surface of 16000 m2. The shopping mall was made of 41 independent businesses and a Casino cafeteria. The SOMABRI company was created in 1978 to enable Casino Group to be present on the DIY market. It opened its first two stores in 1978 in Toulouse Fenouillet and in Clermont le Brézet. Casino transferred its majority ownership to Castorama in October 1989.The Internationalization of Casino Group (1976–1999)
In 1976, the internationalization of Casino Group started in the United States with the creation of Casino USA to operate French cafeterias in the USA. Restaurants were opened in Phoenix, Arizona, then in Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Westwood Village, Costa Mesa, and Seattle in California. Many convenience businesses also opened their doors under the name Le Petit Casino.The Group took over the chain Thriftimart, Inc. stores which then became Smart & Final Iris.
Back then, the company owned around 90 retail outlets, all self-service, and implanted mainly in California. The internationalization of Casino Group then accelerated until the end of the 1990s with its development across South America. In March 1996, Casino Group signed a partnership agreement with Dairy Farm International, one of the biggest groups of supermarkets in Asia. A joint company was then created for the development of hypermarkets in the Asian South-East and particularly in Taïwan where a first hypermarket opened in 1998. In 1999, Casino Group bought into the capital of Distribution Groups GPA and Grupo Éxito in Brazil and in Colombia.