The Casino group announced on Wednesday evening that the Paris Commercial Court had subjected it to an accelerated safeguard procedure for at least two months, to “implement” the restructuring of its debt in continuity with the agreement reached at the end of July .
Casino, with 200,000 employees worldwide, 50,000 of them in France, under well-known brands such as Monoprix, Franprix or Grupo de Acucar, was strangled by a debt of 6.4 billion euros at the end of 2022, but its restructuring is possible thanks to a takeover bid by the Czech billionaire. Daniel Kretinsky, the Frenchman Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière and the British fund Attestor.
The distributor of Saint-Etienne origin announced in a statement on Wednesday “the opening today of an accelerated safeguarding procedure for the benefit of Casino, Guichard-Perrachon and some of its subsidiaries to implement the group’s restructuring plan” which had been validated during an agreement in principle at the end of July and then a binding agreement at the beginning of October.
Renegotiate the debt
“The specialized commercial court of Paris has opened accelerated safeguard proceedings for an initial period of two months, which may be renewed for another two months without exceeding a total duration of four months at most,” the group specifies. These procedures are not a surprise and are part of the restructuring plan launched by the company. They must allow the distributor’s debt to be renegotiated, even with creditors who have not agreed to the conditions presented in recent months.
Casino takeover candidates plan to provide €1.2 billion in new money, subject to nearly €5 billion of Casino debt being reduced. The casino activities in Latin America, in which three quarters of the group’s employees work, must also be sold. This plan foresees the loss of control of the group by its current CEO, Jean-Charles Naouri.
Casino, which will publish its sales for the third quarter of 2023 on October 31 on the stock market, also specified on Wednesday afternoon that “the execution of the capital increases planned within the framework of the financial restructuring plan” must be carried out ” by April 30, 2024 at the latest. Casino finally specifies that the procedure “only affects the financial debt” and will have “no impact on the group’s relations” with its operating partners, in particular its suppliers or its franchisees.
Source: BFM TV
