2023-10-02 14:06:25
The transfer of 61 Casino stores to Intermarché was formalized this Monday morning, the two groups announced. This is the “first wave” of a sale of more than 100 stores planned since May. Casino – in the grip of significant financial difficulties – and Intermarché speak of “an enterprise value of 209 million euros including service stations” for this operation.
The two food distribution specialists, respectively the seventh and third players in the sector, agreed in May on a sale of 119 stores in two waves involving 4,000 employees, with an optional third of around sixty stores. The operation allows Casino to reduce its significant debt and Intermarché to increase its market share.
A period of conciliation
This agreement comes in a troubled context for Casino, plagued by an unsustainable debt that it must restructure as part of a conciliation period with its creditors, recently extended until October 25 by the Paris commercial court. . At the end of July, the group’s key creditors undertook “to support and carry out any steps or actions reasonably necessary”, so that Casino could restructure its debt, and thus to accept the takeover offer from the Czech Daniel Kretinsky and his allies. , billionaire Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière and the British fund Attestor.
This offer provides for the contribution of 1.2 billion euros in new money and the reduction of nearly 5 billion euros in the group’s debt, as well as the sale of the Casino activities in Latin America for which three quarters work. of the group’s approximately 200,000 employees. The handover between the current majority shareholder, CEO Jean-Charles Naouri and the buyers, is expected at the beginning of 2024.
Ten hypermarkets are affected: three in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Rhône-Alpes (Albertville, Chasse-sur-Rhône, Vals-près-le-Puy), four in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté (Besançon, Chalon-sur-Saône, Fontaine -lès-Dijon, Lons-le-Saunier), one in Centre-Val de Loire (Tours La Riche), one in Hauts-de-France (Amiens), one in Nouvelle-Aquitaine (Poitiers).
The sold stores are distributed throughout the territory, with a larger number in the south-west and east of France, on an axis going from Charleville-Mézières in the Ardennes to Bernis in the Gard via Firminy in the Loire, not far from the historic headquarters of the brand founded 125 years ago by Geoffroy Guichard in Saint-Étienne.
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