CARREFOUR HAS appointed Vivarte chief executive Georges Plassat as CEO, ending Lars Olofsson’s three-year reign that saw shares of the world’s second-largest retailer fall 24 per cent.

Mr Plassat will join the company on April 2nd as chief operating officer and become chairman and chief executive after the June 18th shareholders meeting, the company said yesterday.

Mr Plassat will seek to restore investor confidence in a company that has forecast lower profit five times since announcing a €1.5 billion plan to remodel some of its largest European stores in September 2010. Carrefour has lost about €7 billion in market value since Mr Olofsson became chief executive ceo in January 2009.

Carrefour declined 67 cent, or 3.6 per cent, to €17.59 as of 3pm in Paris trading yesterday.

Mr Plassat rejoins Carrefour after 11 years at Vivarte, the Paris-based owner of the Kookai clothing brand, that was acquired by private-equity firm Charterhouse Capital Partners in 2007. A former chief executive of French supermarket operator Casino Guichard-Perrachon, he ran Carrefour’s Spanish business between 1997 and 1999. – (Bloomberg)