A Casino store in Tassin-la-Demi-Lune, near Lyon, taken on July 3, 2023 (AFP / JEFF PACHOUD)
The Casino and Mousquetaires/Intermarché distribution groups “completed the sale” of a first wave of 61 stores at the end of September, as planned in the agreement concluded in May which allows the former to reduce its debt and the latter to increase its shares Steps.
The two groups formalized the operation on Monday, citing a “business value of 209 million euros including service stations”.
The two food distribution specialists, respectively the seventh and third players in the sector, agreed in May on a sale of 119 stores in two waves involving 4,000 employees, with an optional third of around sixty stores.
They indicated on Monday that the operations “were carried out on September 30” and that Casino “received the sale price”, while Les Mousquetaires have “already taken possession of 58 of the 61 points of sale sold”.
With regard to the stores in the second wave of transfers, which must take place “within a maximum period of three years”, “the Les Mousquetaires group acquired a non-controlling stake of 49% in these points of sale and paid to Casino, on September 30, 2023, a first lump sum payment of 140 million euros”, specify the companies.
This sum will be deducted “from the final price calculated on the basis of the market value of the assets”.
– Supply agreement –
This agreement also provides for an extension of their purchasing partnerships, in particular through a supply agreement “with the seafood and butchery sectors” of the Mousquetaires, who have the particularity of having a large agri-food production network.
In an Intermarché supermarket in Bourg-Achard, in Eure, May 18, 2023 (AFP / JOEL SAGET)
The transaction takes place in a troubled context for Casino, plagued by an unsustainable debt that it must restructure as part of a conciliation period with its creditors, recently extended until October 25 by the Paris Commercial Court .
At the end of July, the group’s key creditors undertook “to support and carry out any steps or actions reasonably necessary” so that Casino could restructure its debt, and thus to accept the takeover offer from the Czech Daniel Kretinsky and his allies. , billionaire Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière and the British fund Attestor.
This offer provides for the contribution of 1.2 billion euros in new money and the reduction of nearly 5 billion euros in the group’s debt, as well as the sale of the Casino activities in Latin America for which the three work. quarters of the group’s 200,000 employees.
– “In October” –
In the immediate future, the vast majority of the 61 stores sold at the end of September will reopen their doors around October 16, 44 under the Intermarché brand, 14 under the discounter Netto brand, the Mousquetaires/Intermarché group announced Monday in a telephone press briefing.
Three of the 61 stores will experience a “resumption lag”, specified Thierry Cotillard. They are experiencing “compliance issues to be addressed before being able to integrate them”, then specified Jean-François Soudais, vice-president of Intermarché and Netto. In addition, Casino had previously specified that a store in Confrançon, in Ain, “will be subject to a subsequent transfer”.
Ten hypermarkets are affected: three in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (Albertville, Chasse-sur-Rhône, Vals-près-le-Puy), four in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté (Besançon, Chalon-sur-Saône, Fontaine-lès- Dijon, Lons-le-Saunier), one in Centre-Val de Loire (Tours La Riche), one in Hauts-de-France (Amiens) and one in New Aquitaine (Poitiers).
The sold stores are distributed throughout the territory, with a larger number in the south-west and east of France, on an axis going from Charleville-Mézières in the Ardennes to Bernis in the Gard, passing by by Firminy in the Loire, not far from the historic headquarters of the brand founded 125 years ago by Geoffroy Guichard in Saint-Etienne.
At the end of the first two waves of sales, Les Mousquetaires/Intermarché plan to have enriched their network with “between 12 and 20 points of sale in each region” and hope to gain at least one share point from the gigantic food distribution market. They occupy third place, behind leader E.Leclerc and Carrefour, and ahead of Système U.
The operation is a cause for concern for the employees concerned. They fear experiencing poorer working conditions at Intermarché, after 15 months of transition where they will retain their social benefits. Thierry Cotillard said Monday that he “wants to bring all these employees on board”.