Supermarket chain Casino cuts 2021 guidance for French retail business

PARIS (Reuters) -Food retailer Casino, which previously expected its French retail operating profit to grow, on Friday cut its 2021 guidance, now seeing “a slight decrease”, blaming a decline in the country’s food market in the fourth quarter.

Casino said France’s food retail sector had declined by a bigger than expected 3.7% in the fourth quarter of 2021.

France was among the European countries hardest hit by the coronavirus at the end of last year.

Casino said it now expects a slight decrease in 2021 EBITDA (earnings before interests, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) in its French retail operations of 1.7% to around 1.28 billion euros ($1.43 billion).

It reports full-year figures on Feb. 25.

($1 = 0.8969 euros)

(Reporting by Tassilo Hummel; editing by Diane Craft, Kirsten Donovan)