ABSTRACT

Auchan was created in 1961 as a single supermarket in Roubaix, France. Roubaix is located in far northern France near Lille, a regional area of a million people. Now, the retailer operates supermarkets, and shopping malls in 16 countries with a business turnover of €54.2 billion. It employs 338,000 people, 163,000 of whom are shareholders (in nine countries). The largest number of employees are in China (139,000) with France second with over 70,000 (for a complete list of countries, see www.groupe-auchan.com/en/). Employees currently hold 10 percent of the shares. The other shares are still owned by the (now hundreds of) members of the founding Mulliez family.2 Auchan is now the fi fth largest retailer in France with €53.4 billion in revenue before tax in 2014.3 The largest, Carrefour, is almost twice as big, holding a 22 percent market share.4 In the list of largest retailers in the world, Carrefour ranks sixth and Auchan thirteenth with Walmart being the biggest.5