Therefore, two offers have been submitted for the Casino group, according to information from BFM Business. The Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky, associated with Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, proposes a capital increase of 1,800 million euros to rescue the Casino group. They will finance this capital increase for a value of 900 million euros, to dispose of 50% of the capital of Casino.
The other offer, that of the Zouari-Niel-Pigasse trio, remains above the amount claimed by Casino, that is, a reinforcement of own funds of 900 million euros, financed by the three businessmen. His offer is also conditional on the Casino group’s debt being cut in half.
Let’s remember that the trio is also a shareholder in Teract, owned by the InVivo agricultural cooperative, which looked at the Casino’s file for a while before giving up.
A guest of BFM Business this Tuesday, Thierry Blandinières, CEO of InVivo, reacts to these two offers. He believes that the increase in Daniel Kretinsky’s offer “is not a surprise” given “the significant deterioration in debt, it makes sense to give Casino a chance to recover.”
“It will take much more than a billion”
The leader estimates that “it will take much more than a billion to reactivate activity.” The risk, a liquidation and a sale to the distributor’s cut: “unless you find solid partners.”
Although InVivo abandoned the financial merger project with the Casino group, it believes that an industrial partnership is still possible. Especially if the Zouari-Niel-Pigasse trio wins the bet.
And to continue: “In the agricultural component, these are clients. We’re looking at industrial options on the way out, we’ll see in late July or early September where we are in terms of the roundtable. Will Casino have solved their debt problem and which government will be in charge? (…) We will be open to discussion.”
However, Casino is already establishing industry partnerships, in particular with a direct competitor to Teract, namely Grand Frais. “It’s stimulating, it’s part of the laws of commerce,” jokes Thierry Blandinières.
“I think it’s fair game. Besides, it’s just a letter of intent, they’re going to find out about the Casino file… Did we come to the same conclusions at the end? We will see. We know the subject well. , we know exactly what we are talking about”, says the leader.
Source: BFM TV
