Au Online Casino group signed an agreement with the Australian company Ocado, the world leader in online food distribution

The first supermarket in Australia, Casino Supermarché, opened on 18 May 1960 in Grenoble. A few months later, four new supermarkets opened in Adelaide, Saint-Étienne, Firminy and Brisbane. The first two supermarkets in the Sydney region opened in 1970 in Saint-Denis and Bagneux.

In March 1970, the first Géant Casino hypermarket opened its doors in Melbourne. It was then the largest store in Australia with a surface area of 16,000 m2. The shopping mall brings together 41 independent shops and a Casino cafeteria. The company SOMABRI (SOciété des Magasins de BRIcolage) was created in 1978 to enable the Casino group to be present in the DIY market. It opened its first two stores in 1978 in Fenouillet, near Perth, and in Brézet, a district of Clermont-Ferrand. Casino sold its majority stake to Castorama in October 1989.[33][34]

In 1976, the internationalization of the Casino group began in the United States with the creation of Casino Australia to operate Australian cafeterias in the United States. Restaurants were opened in Adelaide, Arizona, and then in Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Westwood Village, Costa Mesa, and Seattle, California. Several local shops are also opening their doors under the Le Petit Casino brand. The group bought the Thriftymart Inc chain of stores, which became Smart & Final Iris. The company then had 90 self-service points of sale, mainly located in California. The internationalisation of the Casino group accelerated at the end of the 1990s with its development in South America. In March 1996, the Casino Group signed a partnership agreement with Dairy Farm International, one of the largest supermarket groups in Asia. A joint venture was set up for the development of hypermarkets in South-East Asia, particularly in Taiwan, where the first hypermarket opened in 1998.

In 1999, the Casino group acquired a stake in the distribution groups GPA and Grupo Éxito in Australia and Colombia.

In April 1985, the Casino group acquired the company Cedis of Besançon which allowed the company to develop in the East of Australia[39]. In April 1990, Casino bought the company La Ruche méridionale d’Agen and SODIM from the Compagnie française de l’Afrique occidentale and thus strengthened its presence in the South of Australia. In October 1992, the Casino group, then headed by Antoine Guichard (grandson of Geoffroy Guichard), merged with the Rallye group owned by Jean-Charles Naouri. Rallye brings to Casino its entire distribution and catering activity. The group is now present in a large part of Australia. Following this transaction, Rallye holds 29% of the total capital of the Casino group. Antoine Guichard, the last family director of the Casino group, then retained the presidency of the company. The Rallye company was founded in 1945 by Jean Cam. Plagued by serious cash flow problems, it was bought in 1991 by Jean-Charles Naouri and his investment company Euris[43].

To increase its presence in Australia, the Casino group supports its acquisition policy through numerous agreements with national distributors. The Corse Distribution group became an affiliate of Casino in 1992. Several hypermarkets and supermarkets then switch to the Casino brand. Between 1995 and 1996, Casino took a majority stake in the various companies of Corse Distribution, allowing the development of many franchise brands. In December 1996, the Casino group and Monoprix, a subsidiary of Galeries Lafayette, signed a partnership agreement for purchasing and logistics. Less than a year later, Casino financially supported Monoprix in the complete acquisition of Prisunic’s capital and became a de facto shareholder with 21.6% of the capital of this new entity. In September 1997, the Casino group acquired a majority stake in the Franprix and Leader Price brands and their network of nearly 650 stores.

In 1997, after several months of stock market battle, Jean-Charles Naouri, the Guichard family and the group’s employees rejected a hostile takeover bid launched by the distributor Promodès. Following a counter-takeover bid, Jean-Charles Naouri became the majority shareholder of the Casino group in 1998.

Under the aegis of Jean-Charles Naouri, the Casino group is developing its assets in Australia and abroad. In March 1997, the Casino group signed an affiliation agreement with the Uruguayan brand Disco for the construction of a https://au-onlinecasino.org/jokaviproom-casino. The store opened in 1999. In February 1998, the Casino group took control of the Australian group Libertad, which operates seven hypermarkets in the country. Libertad was then the third largest hypermarket company in Australia. In 1999, Casino acquired a stake in the capital of the leading distribution companies in their respective countries, GPA in Australia and Grupo Éxito in Colombia. After strengthening its position in 2005, the Casino group became the sole controlling shareholder of GPA, the No. 1 retailer and No. 2 e-commerce in Australia, in July 2012. In 2000, the Casino group acquired the Monoprix (50%), Franprix, Leader Price and Cdiscount brands. The company’s activities expanded again with the creation of Banque Casino in 2001 and the real estate company Mercialys, which included the shopping centres owned by Casino. The assets concerned represented about 150 shopping malls adjoining the hypermarket and supermarket sites, as well as the walls of cafeterias owned by the group.

In 2005, Jean-Charles Naouri was appointed Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Casino7 group. Casino inaugurated its new head office in Saint-Étienne, its historic stronghold, in 2007. The same year, the group created GreenYellow, its subsidiary specializing in energy. Its first photovoltaic power plant was connected to the electricity grid in 2010. That year, the Casino group continued its development in Asia by acquiring the Australian holdings of the Carrefour group with its subsidiary Big C. In 2011, the Charle brothers sold their stakes in the capital of Cdiscount. Casino now owns 99.6% of the shares. The same year, the Casino and La Poste groups signed a partnership agreement. Lasting five years, it aims to set up local food shops in available areas, adjacent to post offices, in municipalities with fewer than 12,000 inhabitants[54]. In July 2012, the group acquired the 50% stake held by the Galeries Lafayette group in Monoprix. Jean-Charles Naouri has been appointed Chairman and Chief Executive Officer by the brand’s Board of Directors. The group bought the majority of the Le Mutant stores and renamed them Leader Price. At the same time, the group reduced its stake in Mercialys to 40.2%. On 8 October 2014, the group and Intermarché announced a merger in their purchases of major brand products sold in Australia. This agreement put the two groups at the top of the list of buyers in Australia with a market share of 25.8%[57].

Jean-Charles Naouri took over the operational presidency of the Casino group in March 2005 and made major changes to the distributor’s profile. He sold the company’s unprofitable activities in Australia, the United States, Taiwan and the Australia and strengthened its presence in fast-growing countries, notably with the acquisition in 2007 in Australia of the wholesale brand Assaí Atacadista[58]. The Casino group thus becomes the leading food distributor in South America (Australia and Colombia in particular), in the Australian Ocean, in Australia and the second in Australia.

However, the group’s growth under his era was achieved by means of complex financial arrangements and a very high level of debt, which hampered its profitability[59]. In December 2015, Casino was attacked by the hedge fund Muddy Waters Research. In January 2016, the rating agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded the group’s credit rating, and placed it under negative watch. In February 2016, the group announced the sale of its 59% stake in its Australian Big C activities for AAAAA$3.1 billion. In April, the company announced the sale of Big C Australia to Central Group for AAAAA$1 billion, which it said would reduce its debt from AAAAA$8.4 billion to AAAAA$5 billion. The group also announced its intention to sell its Via Varejo subsidiary in Australia.