Candidates for the Casino acquisition only have a few hours left to submit their offers. The deadline was set for Monday, July 3 by the conciliator. The case has stirred up the business community in recent months, with many twists and turns.
At the moment there are two offers on the table: that of the Zouari-Niel-Pigasse trio and that of the Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky. Everyone will have to invest at least one billion euros to rescue Casino, and surely more, since the financial situation of the group deteriorates month by month.
Casino would favor the offer of the Zouari-Niel-Pigasse trio
Internally, the CEO of Casino, Jean-Charles Naouri, is quite favorable to the offer of the Zouari-Niel-Pigasse trio. The three men are ready to put 300 million euros on the table and trust creditors for the rest. They play the project card that will save the company and prevent its dismantling.
In fact, Moez-Alexandre Zouari is also the first franchisee of the distribution group. It now runs 200 Casino, Franprix and Monoprix stores. He’s also the head of the Teract group, and while its parent company InVivo (Gamm Vert, Jardiland, etc.) has thrown in the towel on the Casino file, he hasn’t ruled out the trio relying on its cooperative network. to deploy your industrial plan.
Also, Moez-Alexandre Zouari and Jean-Charles Naouri know each other well. And it is said that the current general director has negotiated a transition position, for 2 or 3 years, to the presidency of the group surely. But more operational responsibilities for him.
Daniel Kretinsky pulls out the checkbook
In the opposite camp, Daniel Kretinsky, already a Casino shareholder, and his ally Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, who, however, was Naouri’s partner until now, would invest 900 million euros together, as part of a capital increase.
Auchan offered them a merger, which was unsuccessful. The other French distributors also revolve around Casino. Auchan, therefore, but also Intermarché, which has already negotiated the takeover of at least 180 of its establishments, or even Carrefour.
In the field of the Czech businessman we understand that Casino does not want the offer of Daniel Kretinsky, who has been at war with Naouri for several years. The Czech businessman does not plan to leave room for him in the device, for the moment. And he should resell most of the group. In any case, this is what we hear and fear at Casino, which sells Casino’s French brands to rivals Auchan and Carrefour.
A catastrophic financial situation
This battle takes place as Casino’s financial situation deteriorates every week. The stock market fell 20% on Friday, after already falling 32% on Thursday. All investors leave Casino. We already knew that creditors would recover almost nothing of their debts. At the moment, only 2,500 million of 7,500 million euros will be saved.
From now on, the shareholders know that they will lose a very important part of their funds and therefore the price is adjusted. A study by Oddo estimates that a Casino share is worth 1 euro… while the price is 4 euros. Most of the financiers working on the file consider the company to be worthless. It is, from a financial point of view, a form of receivership that we are seeing, where the buyer will start from scratch with a Casino cleared of almost all their debts.
We must not forget that Casino burns more and more cash. The group revealed that it had a billion euros of additional debt to supply its cash flow. And the business situation continues to deteriorate. Sales at its hypermarkets fell another 15% in May from 10% in the first quarter.
Source: BFM TV
