Tesco (TSCO) shares rose today as it announced a strategic purchasing alliance with French supermarket giant Carrefour (CA) on own-brand products and goods not for resale. Morningstar equity analysts view this imminent partnership as a net positive for both constituent parties due to mutually beneficial purchasing efficiencies, with Carrefour benefiting the most in our opinion from Tesco's market-leading expertise and rich own-brand experience. We maintain our fair-value estimates of 230p and €17.9 fair value estimates for Tesco and Carrefour.
For Tesco, we think the deal comes as a response to the Sainsbury's-Asda proposed merger, which gives the merged entity unprecedented buying power with a combined market share of 31.4% versus 27.6% for Tesco, according to Kantar data.
Three-star rated Tesco will benefit from higher efficiencies and enhanced buying clout flowing from an additional £20 billion worth of sales in own-brand demand. High customer awareness of great quality and cheap private-label products, in combination with the imminent threat coming from a combined Sainsbury-Asda entity and the continuing growth of hard, means that grocers that are better positioned to offer high-value own brands should gain an advantage over competition.
For Carrefour, this new partnership follows a series of initiatives taken by new management to bolster up the grocer's buying clout and purchasing efficiencies, as part of its transformation plan announced back in January 2018. This involves a buying alliance with System U – with more than 30% combined grocery market share in France – in several product categories, including fresh produce.
Now a long-term buying alliance with Tesco focused on private-label goods will provide more than €50 billion of own-brand sales for Tesco and Carrefour combined, on our calculations.
Savings that will flow from this partnership are included in Carrefour's 2020 target of €2 billion in cost savings and will give the firm ample leeway to address its less competitive price position.
Finally, the agreement could encompass all categories – food, nonfood, fresh – based on purchasing conditions but will not affect local or regional suppliers. The alliance will be formally sealed within the next two months.