2023-05-16 08:40:37
Casino’s debt is valued at 4.5 billion euros. STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS
In the running to take over the supermarket chain, the main shareholder of Teract intends to offer “better visibility”.
Thierry Blandinières, managing director of the InVivo group, main shareholder of Teract, in the ranks to take over the French activity of Casino, said on Tuesday that “a conciliator will be appointed on May 22“, which will offer “better visibilityon the troubled distributor’s debt. “We are entering the debt study phaseand “a conciliator will be appointed on May 22,” explained Mr. Blandinières on Radio Classique, adding that “from there, we will surely have a better visibility of the extent of Casino’s debt».
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The distributor, which employs more than 50,000 people in France and 200,000 worldwide under many brands, including Monoprix or Franprix, has been struggling for years to get out of debt, so far without success. The group, indebted to the tune of 6.4 billion euros at the end of 2022, to which must be added more than three billion in debt for the group’s parent company, Rallye, announced in April that it was studying the possibility of opening a procedure. conciliation with its creditors.
Casino has been officially discussing since February a possible merger with Teract, whose majority shareholder is the agrifood giant InVivo and which has around the table of its board of directors the founder of Free Xavier Niel and the banker of business Matthieu Pigasse. At the end of April, the third supermarket chain in France, Intermarché, joined these discussions. The managing director of the agricultural giant InVivo, a union of 188 French cooperatives, also said to himself “prudenton Casino’s debt, promising to be “attentive“so that that of a new Casino/Teract set is not “delusional».
Daniel Kretinsky, already a 10% shareholder in Casino, also proposed on April 24 to inject 750 million euros into the group via a reserved capital increase of more than one billion euros in total. The managing director of Teract (Gamm Vert, Jardiland, Boulangeries Louise) Moez-Alexandre Zouari recently called on the Czech billionaire to work together.
«We have never closed the door to outside investors” more “today we have no discussion with the representatives of the competing offer“, However, indicated Mr. Blandinières.
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