Monoprix-Prisunic merger sees 300 jobs under the axe

Eurofood,  Dec 3, 1998  

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Monoprix, the French retail group specialising in city centre stores, has finally unveiled its plans to merge its headquarters with those of Prisunic, the supermarket group it acquired more than a year ago, into a new combined head office located in Boulogne-Billancourt on the outskirts of Paris. The merger will mean the loss of 300 jobs, cutting the number of staff down to 1 000 by the end of 2000. Some 400 of the current 1 300 employees at the head offices are from the Prisunic group.

No redundancies foreseen

The company is confident that it will not be forced to make any of the 300 workers redundant. Most will be found jobs elsewhere within Monoprix's parent company, Galeries Lafayette, or at Prisunic's former owner, the Pinault-Printemps-Redoute retail group. Most of the new jobs will be found at the 109 Monoprix or Prisunic stores in the Paris region, which have a very high turnover of staff. In addition, some 235 employees will be above the age of 55 by the end of 2000 and could be offered attractive early-retirement packages.

The reduction in staff levels is part of Monoprix's strategy of cutting costs and improving efficiency in a bid to lift operating profits to 3% of turnover by 2000, compared to the current level of just 2%. This would see the group post operating profits of FF600m (ECU91.3m) on projected sales of FF20bn.

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