Wal-Mart weighs selling its Mexico restaurant unit

US supermarket chain Wal-Mart announced Friday that it was weighing whether to sell its restaurant unit in Mexico, one of the country's largest. Vips is a leading restaurant chain in Mexico, with 364 locations drawing 79 million customers a year. The division of Walmex, which is controlled by Wal-Mart stores, includes El Porton, Ragazzi and La Finca restaurants. Walmex said it "has begun a process to consider potential offers from third parties interested in acquiring its restaurant division Vips." Vips has only just been put on the market and "it cannot be guaranteed that the sale will be carried through," the company added in a statement. It said the restaurant unit accounted for 1.7 percent of Walmex's consolidated sales and 1.6 percent of its net earnings last year. Wal-Mart employs more than 234,000 people in Mexico in several companies, including restaurant chains, three supermarket chains, clothing retailer Suburbia and a bank.