2023-07-07 13:19:49
By Le Figaro with AFP
Posted 3 hours ago, Updated 1 minute ago
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The Autorité des marchés financiers on Friday demanded a fine of 27.5 million euros against Rallye, the parent company of Casino, accusing it of having “artificially reassured” investors between March 2018 and May 2019.
The troubles are piling up for Casino, which is fighting for its survival: the Autorité des marchés financiers on Friday demanded a fine of 27.5 million euros against its parent company Rallye due to communications “false or misleadingon its debt between 2018 and 2019. The representative of the college of the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) criticizes Rallye for having “artificially reassuredinvestors between March 2018 and May 2019 saying that the company had financing, while conditions precedent applied to these lines of credit and could therefore lead to their partial unavailability.
Rallye was under strong pressure from investors on its debt, attacked by short sellers, and ended up in May 2019 by requesting its placement in safeguard proceedings. The representative of the AMF College, Anne-Claire Hercot-Le Bihan, denounced during a meeting of the Authority’s sanctions commission “an unprecedented concealment“, with “very strong gravity and intent factors“who do not suffer”no exculpatory circumstances».
Thus, between 400 and 600 million euros of liquidity displayed by Rallye are in reality not available to the AMF depending on the period, a difference that almost all of the defense lawyers contest. 25 million euros are claimed from Rallye and 2.5 million from Franck Hattab, its managing director. “The financial situation of Rallye“, currently in great difficulty, “is not [la seule] to consider“For the sanction, justified the representative, who therefore asked”an exemplary punishment».
Rallye is the holding company through which Jean-Charles Naouri controls the distributor Casino, which has been trying for several weeks to survive its colossal debts. Riddled with nearly three billion euros in debt, a large part of which is guaranteed by the shares of its subsidiary Casino, Rallye has constantly assured the markets during the period in question that its liquidity situation was “solid» or «very solid“while she was, according to the reporter of the case, “extremely fragile».
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Conditional loans
Debt repayment being the main issue on Rallye during these fifteen months, its publications manipulated the market by participating in fixing the price of the action “at a higher level than it would have been in the absence of the dissemination of false and misleading informationaccording to the rapporteur. Rallye presented, on the occasion of its annual or half-yearly results, or other financial communications, the assurance of being able to mobilize financing in full, whereas restrictive conditions were provided for: eight loans are concerned, including a loan at amount of 300 million euros by the bank UBS which was only very little mobilized due to conditions not revealed to the market, according to the rapporteur. “The line of credit is not unavailable, that is not true. The cost of its availability“, not known by the market, “is marginal and the impactof taking this cost into account would have beennegligible“, assured the lawyer of Rallye.
Other examples, according to the AMF, Rallye did not say that loans of 500 million euros by several French banks in September 2018 should be repaid early, in the event of the sale of stores, such as the Courir brand, while that the markets believed that the money from the disposals was going to add up to the financing of the loans. “At the material time, our belief is that the communication was in the appropriate formatdefended Franck Hattab’s lawyer. “Communication on the structure of Rallye’s liquidity is constanthe continued. “The ability to meet our 12-month deadlines was justified“, he also estimated.
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Parquet national financier
Rallye’s safeguard plan was validated in February 2020 for a debt spread over 10 years, since extended due to the Covid-19 crisis. But since then, Casino is crumbling under the weight of its 6.4 billion euros in debt. Two takeover offers were submitted on Tuesday, by the billionaire duo Daniel Kretinsky and Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, on the one hand, the trio Xavier Niel, Matthieu Pigasse and Moez-Alexandre Zouari, on the other. In any case, Rallye will lose control of Casino, the company has warned. In addition, another investigation has been opened by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), a representative of which attended the session in the public, after a report from the AMF for alleged acts of “organized gang price manipulation, active and passive private corruption» et «insider trading committed during 2018 and 2019“. Jean-Charles Naouri was notably placed in police custody in this investigation in June 2023. The Sanctions Committee will make its decision in several weeks.
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