2024-02-05 06:31:11
The future of the Casino group, the distributor of more than a hundred years of origin from Saint-Etienne, will be decided this Monday before the Paris commercial court. The latter must examine and probably endorse the accelerated safeguard plan for the group which was drowning in debt with the arrival of new shareholders and a significant reduction in the number of stores.
This plan provides for a profound restructuring. It must come under the control, by March/April, of billionaires Daniel Kretinsky and Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, backed by the Attestor investment fund. This consortium should provide nearly a billion euros (925 million euros) to meet upcoming deadlines and to relaunch activity.
Employees denounce “the opacity which surrounded” the safeguard plan
In exchange for this massive debt reduction, the buyers will take the reins of Casino. The current shareholders, starting with the CEO for a few weeks Jean-Charles Naouri will be massively diluted.
In mid-January, these shareholders had largely endorsed this plan, as did the creditors, the largest of whom had already given their agreement in principle in the summer of 2023. They then recorded significant losses for each of them. them, but they had little choice. According to them, it was “the only solution on the table to make the group viable”, as one of the judicial administrators at his bedside, Aurélia Perdereau, recalled.
On the other hand, employees were more dubious. On January 31, the central social and economic committee of Casino France unanimously issued an “unfavorable opinion” on the group’s accelerated safeguard plan, to protest against “the opacity which surrounded” its development, explained Nathalie Become, spokesperson for the Casino inter-union (FO, CGT, CFDT, UNSA, CFE-CGC). But there is no question of filing an appeal. The objective is not to see the company placed in compulsory liquidation with more uncertain consequences. The inter-union organization regretted in a press release that this plan does not include “any social component”, while it provides for “a sale of half of the activity and an adjustment in the size of the workforce at the head office and the distribution chain. ‘supply “.
Casino must offload a good number of stores
In France, 288 large stores, super and hypermarkets, will pass into the hands of Intermarché, Auchan, and Carrefour in 2024. Thus, more than 12,800 people are affected by a transfer of stores, out of the 50,000 that the Casino group still had in France at the end of 2022 under its various brands (including Monoprix and Franprix). Employee representatives fear 5 to 6,000 job cuts in support, administrative or logistics functions, as a result of this sharp reduction in the number of stores. The employees planned to travel to Paris for the hearing at the commercial court.
This plan, barring any surprises, should be validated by the court, especially since the group has received authorization from the European Commission under the regulations on foreign subsidies. If this is the case, the accelerated backup period for Casino and its subsidiaries should then end on February 25. The various capital increases must then take place in March and a general meeting of new shareholders must immediately decide on the new composition of the board of directors.
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