Carrefour shelves property IPO plan

Paris: Carrefour, Europe's biggest retailer, said the head of its core French business was leaving and it was deferring a listing of part of its property division, a controversial plan opposed by some shareholders.

The French group did not give a reason yesterday for the departure of former Tesco manager James McCann from his position as executive director for France.

Bernstein analyst Chris Hogbin said the move signalled its new Carrefour Planet hypermarkets — the lynchpin of the company's plan to turn round years of underperformance in its main western European markets — were not performing as well as hoped.

Carrefour, the world's second-biggest retailer behind Wal-Mart, said chief executive Lars Olofsson would take over the operational management of the French business pending the appointment of a successor. It also said it was deferring the proposed listing of 25 per cent of Carrefour Property during the transition, while pressing ahead with the planned spin off of discount chain Dia.

Carrefour had come up with a plan to float all of Dia and part of its real estate division and deliver €4 billion in special dividends in response to dissatisfaction from key shareholders Colony Capital and Groupe Arnault with its underperforming share price.

But there had been mounting opposition to the property spin off, ranging from activist shareholder Knight Vinke, Deminor, French minority shareholder association APPAC to French labour unions and founding family shareholder Defforey.