Following rumors of a merger with rival Carrefour, the president of the Molise Family Association (AFM), owner Auchan, confirmed that the large retail chain would not be sold.

“We will never sell Auchan,” he said Sunday at North sound The president of the Molise Family Association (AFM), Malik Auchan, after an article in Le Monde that sparked discussions with Carrefour about the merger.

Alliances or partnerships but without conversion

“We can discuss alliances or partnerships, we have always done so, but one thing is certain: we will never sell Auchan!”

AFM is a family galaxy of several hundred cousins ​​at the helm of many other brands, such as Boulanger or Decathlon, with a defined strategic decision-making process.

“We believe the future is being built through exchanges and openness to others and perhaps through partnerships led by our independent companies,” Barthelemy Gislin nevertheless insisted.

In a press release sent to North soundAFM put forward the same desire for openness: “A family cannot support the idea that its companies can create a closed ecosystem to meet their challenges, particularly environmental and digital.”

Gerard Molise’s reaction

On Friday, Auchan’s founder, Gerard Molise, declared to know on a daily basis that “there is no question of discussion and exchange in order to approach anyone, let alone sell Auchan or realize that I don’t know about a financial transaction with a competitor.”

“Auchan is aware of its problems and is fully capable of correcting them without giving up its non-negotiable financial independence,” insisted the person who left the distributorship in 2006.

These reactions from the Mulliez family follow an article on Globalism Thursday evokes the opening of the spring discussions between Carrefour and Auchan Group.