The alliance between Casino and Teract materializes. Casino, the indebted owner of well-known brands such as Monoprix and agricultural cooperative holding company Teract, announced Thursday its desire to merge. The two companies ont signed an “accord d’exclusivité” dans l’objectif de “conclude an agreement engaging in order to believe the French leader of responsible and durable distribution”, according to a communiqué, after the confirmation début Février of “discussions exploratoires” About that.
The two companies want to create two separate entities, one controlled by Casino and the other by the union of 188 agricultural cooperatives InVivo, Teract’s main shareholder and an agribusiness giant in Europe. The first “would bring together the distribution activities in France”, with the more than 9,100 stores of the Casino group and “the experience in the operation of garden centres, pet and food stores” of Teract, which also owns the Louise bakeries, the the brands Frais d’Ici and Bio&Co and the garden centers Gamm Vert and Jardiland.
At the end of the second trimester
The second, called “Teract Ferme France” will be in charge of the supply of agricultural products and will “benefit” from its links with InVivo. The new group intends to raise “additional” capital of “around 500 million euros”, with “discussions with a number of investors” already underway, according to Casino and Teract. The merger would allow, in particular, “to establish common supply chains with agricultural cooperatives” and “favor short circuits”, according to the joint press release.
A binding agreement could see the light “before the end of the second quarter” of 2023, specify the two groups, and the project would then be “subject to consultation with the representative bodies of the workforce” as well as the approval of the authorities of competition. InVivo has some 14,500 employees worldwide, including almost 11,000 in France, with a turnover of almost 12 billion euros. Casino, the seventh player in food distribution in France, employs more than 200,000 people worldwide.
Teract, whose capital is listed on the stock market for just under 10%, wants to offer a range of fresh products (fruit and vegetables, meat, cheese, groceries) under the name “Grand marché frais d’ici”, on a part of square meters commercials currently occupied by the activity of the garden center. The company was created in 2022 after the merger between, on the one hand, the “distribution” arm of InVivo and a financial investment vehicle created by the founder of Free Xavier Niel, the banker Matthieu Pigasse and a major player in distribution in France. Moez-Alexandre Zouari, who is also a major franchisee of the Casino group.
Propose an “alternative model”
Also a shareholder in the Picard frozen food chain and owner of the non-food discount chains Stokomani and Maxi Bazar, Moez-Alexandre Zouari is critical of the “traditional” mass distribution model, which fights with brochures and promotions and whose relationships with suppliers they are often uptight. Without mentioning Casino, he said in February that he wanted to look at “the relationship between producers and distributors” in another way. He confirmed on Thursday, quoted in the press release, that he wished to “bring to light a new integrated agri-food model” proposing with Casino an “alternative model”.
“To better value the income of farmers” is also “the mission” of Teract, recalled the general director of InVivo, Thierry Blandinières. And the CEO of Casino, Jean-Charles Naouri, sees it as a lever to “accelerate strategic transformation” and, in particular, “improve our environmental impact.” Some industry observers also see this merger as a way for Teract to “little by little get its hands on beautiful business assets” from Casino, heavily in debt, to possibly recoup them in the future, according to Clément Genelot, Bryan’s distribution specialist, Garnier. and company
Source: BFM TV
