Financial analysis of the Carrefour Group

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Table of Content

Introduction

I. Management of the company

1°) Executive summaries 2°) Management and Human resources

II. Carrefour and its market

1°) the retail market 2°) Evolution of the French market 3°) Carrefour Group 4°) Competition

III. Financial analysis 1°) Risk Management 2°) Annual Report 3°) Analysis of ratios and financial datas

IV. Recommendations

V. Bibliography

Introduction

In forty years, the Carrefour group; french international chain of hypermarket, became a leader; number 1 in Europe, 2nd largest retail group in the world behind the American Wal-Mart in term of revenues and sales figures.

Created in 1959 in Annecy by Marcel Fournier and Denis Defforey, where is located the first Carrefour store, and grew up to become a group present through more of 15 millions of m² of shop space in 29 countries all around the world; in Europe, South America and Asia, as well as in the other zones of the world in the form of local partnerships. The Carrefour activity can be represented by more of 3 billions of cash desk passages each year.

Pioneer of the concept of hypermarket in 1963 (first supermarket built in Sainte Genevieve des Bois, near Paris), the group is also present in the other formats of the large-scale retailing distribution, essentially supermarkets and hard-discount.

I Management of the company

1° Executive summaries

On one of the first page of the Carrefour annual report, through his letter, Robert HALLEY, president of the supervisory board of Carrefour group, explain to the reader that the year 2006 was a year of expansion thanks to the engagement of the group in a strategy led by the executive board for two years.
He declares than Carrefour made choices to have