TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Carrefour on Tuesday (July 19) announced that it will sell its 60% stake in Carrefour Taiwan to Uni-President Enterprises Corp. for NT$29 billion (US$970 million), making the Taiwanese firm the sole owner of the French supermarket chain's business in the country, with the handover expected to be completed in 2023.

At a press conference at 11:40 p.m. on Tuesday evening, Uni-President (統一) announced that it would purchase a 49.5% stake in Carrefour Taiwan for NT$23 billion, while Uni-President Chain Store Corp. (統一超) said it would purchase a 10.5% stake for NT$5.1 billion, reported ETtoday. The total value of the purchase is NT$29 billion or about NT$64.92 per share.

Uni-President Group said it has been 35 years since it co-founded Carrefour Taiwan with Carrefour. However, as its French partner's strategic plan has shifted away from Asia, Uni-President said it prioritized the Taiwan business purchase after the two parties signed an agreement on the sale of the shares that day.

Once the deal is completed, the Uni-President Group will obtain the operational rights over 340 Carrefour Taiwan stores. Carrefour Taiwan's consolidated revenue in 2021 exceeded NT$80 billion and the number of its members reached 4.6 million.

Chen Kuo-hui (陳國煇), chief financial officer of Uni-President, pointed out Uni-President will own 70% of Taiwan Carrefour, while Uni-President Chain Store Corp. will hold 30%, giving the Uni-President Group 100% ownership. This would further cement the group's dominant position in Taiwan's retail sector as it also runs Starbucks, 7-Eleven, and Mister Donut, while Carrefour Taiwan recently also acquired Wellcome and Jasons.

The Uni-President Group said the sale has yet to be approved by the Fair Trade Commission. The review process for such a deal generally takes about four to six months, and therefore the sale is expected to be completed by mid-2023.

The French supermarket giant Carrefour has more than 13,000 stores in nearly 40 countries, forming a sales network of diversified retail outlets and is one of the world's leading food retailers. The Carrefour Group's revenue in 2021 was 81.2 billion euros and it has more than 370,000 workers in its consolidated stores and over 500,000 employees worldwide, according to the corporation's website.

In recent years, Carrefour has begun to withdraw from the Asia region. The firm's sale of its business in Taiwan comes three years after it sold Carrefour China to Chinese ecommerce retailer Suning.com in 2019.