2023-04-24 14:52:18
Daniel Kretinsky, soon majority shareholder of Casino? The French distribution group announced on Monday that it had received a capital increase proposal from the Czech billionaire, an alternative track to discussions on a merger with the Teract group – which is also of interest to Intermarché.
Casino has been struggling for several years with debt problems, first of the holding companies through which the CEO of Groupe Casino, Jean-Charles Naouri, controls the distributor (companies Rallye, Foncière Euris, Finatis and Euris), then of the group itself.
In this context, the stock market price of Casino, which employs 200,000 people worldwide, including a large quarter in France, plummets. Its capitalization has fallen to around 600 million euros, less than the value of its distribution activities – including Franprix, Monoprix or the e-merchant CDiscount.
Already discussions with Teract
This situation arouses envy. In early February, Casino announced that it had entered into discussions with a newly created entity, Teract, about a potential merger. Created in 2022, Teract owns garden center (Jardiland, Gamm Vert, Delbard) and bakery (Boulangeries Louise) brands. Its majority shareholder is the agribusiness juggernaut InVivo, which is the union of 188 French agricultural cooperatives.
Businessmen Xavier Niel and Matthieu Pigasse sit on its board of directors. The group is managed by Moez-Alexandre Zouari, a major player in distribution in France, and one of the main franchisees of the Casino group in Île-de-France.
Casino and Teract intend to create two separate companies, one on the distribution side, the other on the supply side, together to form a “French leader in responsible and sustainable distribution”, close to the concept of the Grand Frais brand. In terms of timing, Casino and Teract expected to “enter into a binding agreement” by the end of the second quarter.
The Intermarché option
Monday, Intermarché, the third player in distribution in France, joined the “exclusive discussions”. Already an ally of Casino on the purchasing side – distributors sometimes buy jointly to have a better balance of power in negotiations with their industrial suppliers – Intermarché would like to buy a certain number of Casino supermarkets and hypermarkets representing a total of more than 1 billion euros in turnover.
Intermarché also wants to take a minority stake in one of the entities resulting from the discussions, and extend the partnership to purchasing.
Kretinsky’s offer
Faced with such a scenario, another option emerged on Monday, at the initiative of Czech billionaire Francophile Daniel Kretinsky. A Casino shareholder since the end of 2019, he now holds 10% of the capital of the company, which makes him the second largest shareholder behind the companies of CEO Jean-Charles Naouri.
With the third shareholder Fimalac, owned by French billionaire Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, Daniel Kretinsky proposed to the Casino board of directors a capital increase – 750 million euros for him, 150 million euros for Fimalac, 200 million euros at the discretion of the other shareholders. This would allow, we explain from a source familiar with the matter, “to significantly strengthen Casino’s equity to meet its deadlines” for the repayment of debts, the largest of which occurs in 2025.
This offer is conditional in particular on the “very substantial reduction of the unsecured gross debt” of Casino, that is to say of its unsecured debts, specified the distributor. Casino said it would “analyze the proposal (…) over the next few weeks”. The group must exchange with some of its creditors to “study the possibility of requesting the appointment of conciliators, without this step constituting a default or a case of default” of payment.
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