Three years ago, Carrefour, the French hypermarket group, announced an expansion drive to open new stores in Thailand, backed by a Bt5bn ($154m) investment.
Today Carrefour is planning to quit the country – where it added 16 stores to the 24 it had, to become one of the top five players – and to pull out of Malaysia and Singapore. Despite being the world’s second-largest retailer by sales after Walmart of the US, it seems Carrefour will become less international under Lars Olofsson, chief executive.
The former Nestlé senior manager, who took the helm in January 2009, is charged with turning round the underperforming retailer by Carrefour’s two activist shareholders, Bernard Arnault, chairman of LVMH, and Colony Capital, which between them hold a 14 per cent stake.