In a separate press release, the group also announced the purchase, for 10 million euros, of a third of CDiscount’s parent company, CNova, bringing Casino’s stake in its online sales subsidiary to almost 99%. .
The Casino group entered into an accelerated safeguard procedure at the end of October in order to restructure its unsustainable debt, for completion by the first quarter of 2024.
200,000 employees worldwide, including 50,000 in France
This restructuring is accompanied by a change of majority shareholder because Casino must come under the control of billionaires Daniel Kretinsky, Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière and the Attestor investment fund as part of a capital increase intended to bring 1.2 billion euros of new money in total.
Casino specifies in its press release Monday that the “marks of interest” received will be “analyzed by the Casino group and the consortium” of buyers “in the next weeks”.
“Any transfer operation must be approved in advance by the consortium”, further indicates the company. Casino and its emblematic CEO Jean-Charles Naouri insisted they wanted to preserve the integrity of the group which at the end of 2022 had 200,000 employees worldwide including 50,000 in France under well-known brands such as Monoprix, Franprix or Grupo de Acucar.
But the activities in Latin America, for which three quarters of employees work, will be sold, and the group’s commercial performance is struggling, to the point that Casino once again lowered its activity forecasts for France at the end of November. .
Operating loss for 2023
It now anticipates an operating loss for 2023 and an operating profit halved in 2024.
In this context, the daily Les Echos indicated on Sunday evening that Casino had received expressions of interest for supermarkets and hypermarkets not affected by the agreement with the Intermarché group.
The economic daily adds that if the sale were completed, it could lead to the sale of warehouses and would raise the question of the future of the group’s historic headquarters in Saint-Etienne.
In mid-July, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire indicated that “the State will be vigilant on employment” and on maintaining the “headquarters in Saint-Etienne”provided for by the agreement between Casino and the candidates for its takeover.