90% probability Carrefour's FY2026 net free cash flow reaches at least EUR 1,450m. The company guides growth against 2025's EUR 1,565m, but H1 net free cash flow was NEGATIVE EUR 1.99bn — which is ordinary for grocery, and why this threshold sits below the prior year rather than above it.
Carrefour reported H1 2026 net free cash flow of NEGATIVE EUR 1.99bn, an improvement of EUR 95m on H1 2025. Net financial debt fell EUR 1.1bn to EUR 5.8bn as at 30 June 2026, and EUR 490m of cost savings were achieved in H1 against a EUR 1bn target for 2026. The company confirmed its 2026 objectives: growth in recurring operating income, more than 25 basis points of operating margin growth versus 2025, growth in net free cash flow versus 2025 (EUR 1,565m), and high single-digit growth in adjusted earnings per share. Real estate net free cash flow of EUR 200-300m is expected for 2026, with further asset disposals possible in the second half. Source: Carrefour Q2 and H1 2026 results, 23 July 2026.
We lock a binary: Carrefour's reported group net free cash flow for full-year 2026 is EUR 1,450m or higher. Confidence 90%.
The company guides growth against 2025's EUR 1,565m. Our threshold sits about 7% BELOW the prior year, not above it, and the reason is worth reading.
Grocery retail has the most violently seasonal cash flow of any sector in this series. Carrefour consumed EUR 1.99bn of cash in the first half and expects to end the year with more than EUR 1.5bn positive. Every euro of the annual figure, and then some, is generated in the second half through working capital unwinding as supplier payment terms, inventory and the Christmas trading period all land together.
That means the full-year number is decided almost entirely in December, by the timing of payments that straddle the year end. A retailer whose operations are performing identically can print a materially different free cash flow figure depending on which side of 31 December a large supplier settlement falls.
Setting a threshold ABOVE the prior year — which is what the guidance implies — would therefore be pricing a working-capital timing question as though it were a performance question. Our floor sits below the 2025 base so that the lock tests whether the business generates cash at broadly its established rate, not whether the calendar cooperates. Note that this is the opposite construction to most locks in the series, where the floor sits below a guided figure that is itself above the prior year.
What supports it: EUR 490m of cost savings banked in H1 against a EUR 1bn full-year target, net debt down EUR 1.1bn year on year, and a confirmed rather than trimmed set of objectives. The residual 10% is the timing risk described above plus any deterioration in French hypermarket trading, which has been the structural problem in this business for a decade.
Carrefour guides real estate net free cash flow of EUR 200-300m for 2026 as a distinct item, with the possibility of further asset disposals in the second half. On a threshold with roughly EUR 115m of headroom against the prior-year base, whether that EUR 200-300m is inside or outside the scored figure could decide the outcome by itself.
The criterion below scores the GROUP net free cash flow line as Carrefour reports it against its own EUR 1,565m comparative, and names the real-estate figure as a separate item rather than leaving the relationship implicit.
RAOSCAFF locks P-268 on 2026-09-02, before the FY2026 result. Scored against group net free cash flow as reported by Carrefour for the twelve months to 31 December 2026.
The floor sits BELOW the prior year on purpose. H1 consumed EUR 1.99bn; the whole annual figure is made in the second half, so a tight threshold would price payment timing as if it were performance.