Casino Group or Casino Guichard-Perrachon is a French mass-market retail group. It was founded on 2 August 1898 by Geoffroy Guichard under the corporate name Guichard-Perrachon & Co. Casino Group is the source of many innovations such as the first distributor's brand in 1901, the first self-service store in 1948 or even the display of a sell-by date on consumer products in 1959. As a historical player in mass-market retail in France, the group also started to grow internationally at the end of the 90s. It acquired GPA and Grupo Éxito in 1999, major companies in mass-market retail in Brazil and in Colombia. Casino Group operates across all food and non-food formats: hypermarkets, supermarkets, convenience stores, discount stores and wholesale stores. Other than the eponymous "Géant Casino" and "Casino Supermarchés", Casino Group owns other brands such as Monoprix, Franprix, Leader Price, Cdiscount, Vival, Spar, Sherpa and Le Petit Casino. Casino Group, currently managed by Jean-Charles Naouri, is quoted on the Paris Stock Exchange. In 2017, its total revenue was €37.8 billion. As of November 2021, the group has a market capitalization of approximately €2.35 billion. History Casino’s genesis (1892 – 1898) Geoffroy Guichard was born on 27 July 1867 in Feurs, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. His parents were the owners of a retail grocery business in Saint-Étienne. In 1889, he married Antonia Perrachon and became a partner with Paul Perrachon, his cousin-in-law, who had been the owner of a shop in the region for around ten years. Geoffroy Guichard became the sole business owner in 1892. The store, located rue des Jardins, was originally the Lyrical Casino of Saint-Étienne. Closed in the 1850s, the Lyrical Casino was transformed into a retail grocery store in the 1860s. Geoffroy Guichard grew the grocery store to turn it into a general food store, based on the Felix Potin model. In April 1898, due to the success of the concept, Geoffroy Guichard opened the first branch in Veauche, in Loire. The beginnings of Casino (1898 – 1904) On 2 August 1898, Geoffroy Guichard founded with his father-in-law « la Société des Magasins du Casino » and « Établissements économiques d’alimentation under the corporate name Guichard-Perrachon & Co. In total, 77 people subscribed to the capital of the new company. The Guichard spouses owned 35% of the company’s capital (limited by shares). As from 1898, warehouses and factories were built in Saint-Étienne. Damaged by a