(BFM Bourse) – Casino is once again under pressure on the stock market as Standard & Poor’s downgraded the Saint-Etienne distributor’s long-term credit rating this weekend. The rating agency points in particular to Casino’s difficulties in honoring its financial commitments, against the backdrop of deteriorating refinancing conditions.
Casino’s indebtedness remains at the head of the gondola of market concerns. Including Standard & Poor’s, which downgraded the Saint-Etienne distributor’s long-term credit rating from “B” to “CCC+” this weekend.
The rating agency justifies this downgrading of Casino’s rating by less favorable market conditions for the company. It expects a more complex operational environment for distributors in France in an adverse economic context. Standard” & Poor’s also adds “the deterioration” of financial market conditions, which will increase pressure on “the group’s liquidity, its ability to sell assets and refinance its debts”. debt will become more and more expensive as interest rates rise.
A title sold off on the stock market
The title Casino logically accuses the blow and is currently plunging by more than 10% to 7.49 euros shortly before 11:00 a.m., to a level never reached before – at least in the “recent” stock market history of the distributor. Since January, the group has lost more than two thirds of its stock market value and now weighs less than 1 billion euros. Casino’s financial situation worries both investors and its main creditors.
The group, which has been experiencing financial difficulties for several years, has been engaged since 2018 in a plan to sell assets deemed “non-strategic” of 4.5 billion euros. Its deadline, initially set for March 2021, has been postponed “to the end of 2023 at the latest”, the execution of this plan having been delayed due to the pandemic.
However, the restructuring of Casino is not going fast enough in the eyes of its creditors, as revealed BFM Business last week.
The main banks are now calling for speeding up the pace with the sale of subsidiaries in South America. “In January 2024, a debt of 800 million euros must be repaid and this time, the banks will not postpone the deadline” then added BFM Business.
Sabrina Sadgui – ©2022 BFM Bourse
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