Brazil bank pulls out of CBD-Carrefour merger

The state-run Brazilian bank BNDES said it was pulling out of a merger deal between France's international food store giant Carrefour and Brazil's CBD Pao de Acucar. The bank dropped its support after the deal was effectively nixed by Carrefour's French food marketing rival, Casino, which has a major stake in CBD, along with Brazil's Diniz family. CBD Pao de Acucar is market leader in Brazil with a network of 1,647 stores and 13.7 billion euros ($19.6 billion) in sales in 2010. BNDES had said its support, which could have been as much as 2 billion Euro ($2.8 billion US) was conditioned on "the agreement of all parties concerned." A merger of CBD and Carrefour, respectively the first and second biggest supermarket chains in Brazil, would have created a supermarket giant. In Paris Tuesday, Casino's board categorically rejected the merger of CBD with Carrefour's Brazilian operations, calling it "contrary to the interests" of Casino shareholders.