2023-07-03 09:27:26
The Casino series continues to experience upheavals. While the contenders for the group’s takeover have until Monday July 3 to submit their takeover offer to the conciliators, management announced on Friday June 30 that it had signed a major partnership with the Prosol group, which manages the fruit business. and vegetables from the Grand Frais stores, to enable it to develop the supply of fresh products to the Casino hypermarkets and supermarkets, as well as to certain Monoprix.
In theory, this industrial partnership without a capital dimension is not intended to interfere with the Casino conciliation procedure launched in mid-May. This should allow the company to renegotiate its gigantic debt of 6.4 billion euros by the end of July. However, it is difficult not to see a direct link with the two takeover offers officially declared to date: that of the Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, associated with the Frenchman Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, and that submitted by the trio of men from cases of Matthieu Pigasse, Xavier Niel and Moez-Alexandre Zouari.
Two officially declared offers
Worth 1.1 billion euros, the Czech offer raises fears of a dismantling of the group, Daniel Kretinsky having never made a secret of his desire to sell the Casino hypermarkets and supermarkets to refocus the distributor on its stores. local (Franprix, Monoprix, Naturalia). However to decide between the offers of repurchase, Casino declared that it would take into account the integrity of its activities and the maintenance in employment of its 55,000 French employees.
For its part, the Niel-Pigasse-Zouari trio initially aimed to implement a project very similar to that outlined on Friday by Casino and Prosol. Last February, Casino had indeed announced that it had entered into discussions with Teract, a competitor of Prosol, in whose capital the three businessmen are. After months of negotiations the project finally failed at the beginning of June. If the trio managed to take control of Casino, would they keep the partnership with Prosol?
Competitors in ambush
What is certain is that even on the home stretch, the Casino soap opera could still conceal some surprises. In recent weeks, the press has echoed the marked interest of certain competitors, such as Carrefour and Auchan, for the Saint-Etienne group. Intermarché, which has already taken its share of the cake with the acquisition of at least 180 Casino stores, could also be ambushed in the event of a second round of negotiations.
According to information from BFMTV, an offer made by historic Casino investors could also be filed on Monday to counter the dilution of the group’s shareholders. A few days earlier, Casino announced that it wanted to convince its creditors to convert a very large part of its debt (between 4.6 and 5.1 billion euros) into new shares, which would lead to the dilution of shareholders and the end of the stranglehold. by Jean-Charles Naouri on the group. In the process, the title plummeted by more than 30% on the stock market.
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