BIG C VIETNAM – REVENUE INCREASED 55 TIMES IN 13 YEARS

Big C Vietnam, which  was announced to sell by Casino Group in 2015, had the total revenue increaseing 55 times after 13 years.

In the past, the precursor of Big C Vietnam is Cora supermarket belonging to Bourbon (France). In 1998, after a long time of operating in the food sector, sugar refining, marine services and son on, Bourbon established Vindémia company and opened the first supermarket in Vietnam following French style with brand “Cora – Dong Nai”. This company also had a part of capital from Casino Group.

At that time, total Investment expenses in Cora – Dong Nai was near 54 millions dollar, inside, 65% capital of Bourbon and 35% capital of Donimex – an import-export business of state in Dong Nai province.

This supermarket had an area more than 18 hectares and 391 staff. Although Cora located 10 km far from the centre of Dong Nai, it welcomed a number of visitors to go sightseeing and shopping. Most experts said, Cora established in a favorable context when there were not any strong competitors in Vietnam retail market.

In 2000 and 2001, two next Cora supermarket were set up in Ho Chi Minh city also welcomed same as Dong Nai province. Despite of the fact that there was not any specific statistics in this period, an expert in this field said that, estimate revenue of this supermarket chain was near VND 500 million each day. Annual sales pace increased 10% and the owner could payback after the third year.

In 2003, Bourbon announced that this supermarket system would rename because the owner of brand “Cora” terminated the borrowed name contract. Big C Vietnam was officially born and belonged to Casino Vietnam. At that time, although brand “Big C” was really well-known in Thailand, the renamed to Big C would not be a good sign to Casino Group.

However, the transformation of this supermarket only really took place when Casino group received all shares from Vindémia and took over part of development task in Vietnam.

In an evaluation report of development states in 2009, Casino Group identified Big C had rapid growth with approximately 45% per year. If the revenue was only VND 336 billion in 2002, this figure increased more 10 times in 2008.

After that, Big C Vietnam continued to extend their system. Until now, they have 32 supermarkets, 10 grocery stores and e-commerce website Cdiscount.vn.

In financial reports first 6 months in 2015, Casino confirmed that Big C Vietnam achieved VND 7.7 billion (near 312 million Euros), up 26% over the same period last year and was higher than the group’s growth rate in Asia (23%).

However, compare to other countries in over the world, Vietnam only contributed 2% in total revenue of this group every year. So, it is considered one of main reason that Casino decided to sell this brand.

• Over 10 domestic and international groups one Big C Vietnam

In this M&A, there were strong candidates such as Central Group, Lotte Group, Aeon, Saigon Co.op and so on participating in the race. According to Saigon Times, he main advantages of Big C’s are considered lying insupplier chain and customer system. As predicted, this M&A can bring to Casino near 1 billion Euros.