CASINO GUICHARD : E-COMMERCE, DRIVE AND HOME MEALS BOOSTED CASINO SALES
Friday, April 24, 2020 at 11:31 a.m.
(BFM Bourse) - After the wave of precautionary purchases, confinement forces the French to take their meals at home, leading to an unprecedented increase in purchases in food retail stores. Casino thus posted an increase of almost 8% in its turnover for the quarter. Confirming its outperformance since the beginning of the year, the action progresses Friday morning in reverse of the sharp correction of the CAC 40 .
In equity markets driven by accommodative monetary policies, the values ??linked to the food industry had not for a decade really had the opportunity to demonstrate their defensive qualities. The exceptional health crisis we are experiencing, however, offers a spectacular reminder, as demonstrated by the turnover published Thursday evening by Casino Guichard-Perrachon. In recent weeks, the group has seen its sales jump by almost 24% in its Franprix stores , Casino supermarkets and convenience stores, which brought the growth rate to 7.9% for the quarter .
In response, the Casino title managed to register a positive development (+ 0.42% to 36 euros at around 10:50 am) even though the entire Paris market declined significantly (-1.4%). Since the start of the year, Casino has fared much better than the CAC 40 , outperforming the latter by almost 10 percentage points.
The Covid-19 epidemic, disrupting all geographies and activities, is obviously the highlight of the first quarter with "an unprecedented increase in demand for large food distribution", observes Casino , whose stores by their typology (proximity, urban stores, e-commerce rather than hypermarkets) are particularly sought after.
20,000 orders per day in "click & collect" and drive
Like its peers, Casino has taken a set of specific measures to meet its essential mission - to secure the food supply of populations - while protecting its employees, its customers and adapting its services to specific needs. For example by systematizing barrier gestures in stores, by accelerating automatic collection (45% in hypermarkets and 36% in supermarkets in February-March), or by increasing its home delivery capacities ("click & collect" and drive) with a rhythm tripled to 20,000 orders per day.
In France, urban formats, proximity and e-commerce, which today constitute the heart of the Casino business model , have been in particular demand since mid-March. In the food chains, growth stood at + 9% over the last four weeks (+ 12% excluding hypermarkets) while Cdiscount has recorded since April 1 a + 40% increase in sales volumes (including + 19% on own sales and + 69% on the marketplace). Beyond the initial storage effect, this growth is explained by a shift from food consumption to consumption at home, says Casino .
Growth over the past four weeks has reached + 24% on average at Franprix, Casino Supermarkets , and Proximity, which are facing the influx of new customers, and triple-digit growth in food e-commerce, in particular the home delivery of Monoprix (via Monoprix.fr and the partnership with Amazon Prime Now). Over the first three months as a whole, sales in France stood at 3.885 billion euros, up 5.8% on a comparable basis.
Margins soar
This growth is accompanied by an increase in profitability, under the effect of the growth in the progression of the share of sales via the marketplace ( Casino recovering a commission on sales from third parties without having to bear additional charges ) more than 50% of sales made through CDiscount in April and an increase (+9.9 points!) of the margin on own sales driven by the improvement in the product mix.
Ebitda in the France perimeter (Cdiscount included) increased by 67 million euros compared to the first quarter of 2019, linked in particular to additional activity since mid-March. Over 12 rolling months, the Ebitda of this scope thus stood at 1.602 billion euros (948 million net of rents paid).
Revenues from Casino activities in Latin America (GPA Food and Éxito) rose 8.5% on a comparable basis and 14% organic this quarter, to 3.96 billion euros, marked by an acceleration sales in the last two weeks of March in all formats, again due to the Covid-19 epidemic. The group reaffirms its plan to expand, renovate and convert stores in Brazil, but warns that the schedule will be adjusted according to the development of the health crisis.
Consolidated turnover for the quarter thus reached 8.294 billion euros, comparable growth of 6.4%, where analysts surveyed by Factset expected on average 8.15 billion euros.