March 14 (Bloomberg) -- Casino Guichard-Perrachon SA, the biggest supermarket owner in Paris, may say tomorrow annual profit rose after the company sold Polish and Taiwanese stores to focus on Thailand and Latin America.

Net income climbed 43 percent to 493 million euros ($650 million) from 344 million euros in 2005, according to the median estimate of five analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Casino, which gets 70 percent of its revenue from France, has had to keep up with price-cutting strategies of competitors such as Carrefour SA and Intermarche. The Saint-Etienne, France-based company sold the Taiwanese outlets in September to focus on faster-growing markets including Thailand and Brazil.

``Thailand is likely to have continued to perform well, and we expect a better second-half performance in Brazil,'' James Anstead, an analyst at Citigroup Inc. in London with a ``sell'' recommendation on the stock, said in a March 7 note to investors. ``Casino's French margins will decline.''

Casino shares have lost about 7 percent this year. The company has a market value of about 7 billion euros.

The food retailer is scheduled to release the earnings tomorrow before French stock trading begins. Following is a table of analysts' estimates, with all figures in euros.

          2006                2005
          Estimated           Reported
Net income
Median    493 million         344 million
High      570 million
Low       443 million

Citigroup, JPMorgan, UBS AG, Merrill Lynch and Ixis Securities contributed estimates to the survey.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ladka Bauerova in Paris at lbauerova@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: March 14, 2007 09:32 EDT