Carrefour appoints new chief executive officer

PARIS - Carrefour SA appointed Vivarte SA Chief Executive Officer Georges Plassat as CEO, ending Lars Olofsson's three-year reign as head of one of the world's largest retailers.

The board of Boulogne-Billancourt, France-based Carrefour approved Plassat's appointment at a meeting on Sunday. Plassat will join the company on April 2 as chief operating officer and become chairman and CEO after the June 18 shareholders meeting, the company said in a statement on Monday.

Plassat will seek to restore investor confidence in a company that has forecast lower profit five times since announcing a 1.5-billion-euro ($2 billion) plan to remodel some of its largest European stores in September 2010. Carrefour has lost about 7 billion euros in market value since Olofsson became CEO in January 2008.