Carrefour prepares to enter Serbia and leave Romania

The Carrefour reshuffle continues. The Group is considering strengthening its presence in Serbia. At the same time, it is planning its exit from Romania, where, however, in 2023 it had made an acquisition.

In the first country, the French giant established an office as early as last year, through its Greek ally and franchisor, Retail and more, also suggesting the possibility of acquiring local distributors.

Meeting with the government

The plan now seems to be gathering pace. In fact (as reported by the newspaper Serbian Monitor and the ekapija.comportal), Jagoda Lazarevic, Minister for Internal and Foreign Trade, met with representatives of the French Group.

“The dialogue – Lazarevic said – was held at Carrefour’s own initiative. The company’s objective is to create a market regulated in accordance with European Union rules, in a climate of healthy competition with the chains already present. The arrival of operators such as Carrefour would certainly help strengthen competition in the retail sector, broaden consumer choice and ensure quality products at attractive prices.

“We discussed the concrete plans,” she continued. “The French intend to enter the market directly, without intermediaries, making Serbia a central hub and involving a large number of our companies as suppliers.”

“However,” she concluded, “the business model does not rule out seeking local affiliates. We agreed that talks will continue until the end of 2025, when the representatives of top management will come to our country.”

In any case, the market is certainly not virgin territory. Just to mention a few, in no particular order, Lidl is already active in Serbia and, at the end of 2024, had around 80 stores. There is also the Slovenian Mercator, operating throughout the Balkan region, with an overall network of nearly 1.600 supermarkets. There is also Maxi, owned by the Belgian-Dutch giant Ahold-Delhaize. Finally, the imminent arrival of Eurospin.

The level of crowding, however, is certainly not comparable to that of Italy, where, needless to say, Carrefour has sold its operations to NewPrinces, in a transaction that still has to be reviewed by the Agcm and the European Commission. A procedure that should be straightforward, given that the acquiring party previously held no interest in the retail sector.

Is Bnp Paribas already at work?

Romania: here, the Group which, in 2023 acquired from Louis Delhaize, 18 Cora-branded sites ( 10 hypermarkets and 8 supermarkets), which were added to around 400 existing outlets (including hypermarkets, supermarkets and discount stores), is said to have assigned Bnp Paribas the role of adviser to find buyers.

The news, initially reported by the French newspaper L’Informé, has not been confirmed at this time.

Carrefour Romania, in the first 9 months of 2025, recorded turnover of over 2 billion euros (773 in the third quarter), with growth of almost two percentage points. A satisfactory result, given that the country has just over 19 million inhabitants, compared with 59 million in our country, where the brand generated, in 2024, a figure of 4,18 billion.

Other articles:

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Carrefour: data for the first nine months of 2025

CARREFOUR'S QUARTERLY RESULTS IN THE MAIN EUROPEAN MARKETS (excluding France)

This article was translated from the original Italian version with the assistance of artificial intelligence. In case of discrepancies, please refer to the original Italian version.