The French company Casino revealed on Monday its desire to part with its Brazilian subsidiary Grupo Pao de Açucar (GPA) and the Colombian Éxitoin full efforts to reduce its significant debt and ensure its economic sustainability.
This is one of the measures publicly announced on Monday to “strengthen [la] liquidity” and guarantee a “perennial capital structure” of the group, which closed 2022 with a debt of 6,400 million euros (6,970 million dollars).
Casino, which last week announced the sale of its 11.7% stake in the Brazilian group Assai for 404 million euros (440 million dollars), did not specify a precise date for the transfer of GPA and Éxito.
(In addition: Grupo Éxito opens a call for young people: with or without experience)
Its activities in Latin America represented a turnover of about 17.8 billion euros (about 19.4 billion dollars) in 2022, a little more than half of the group’s total that year: 33.6 billion euros (about 36.6 billion dollars).
(You may be interested in: Grupo Éxito: their income increased, but their profits fell in 2022)
At the end of 2022, the company based in Saint-Étienne (southeastern France) had almost 1,000 stores in Brazil and more than 2,100 in Colombia, as well as 33 in Argentina and 96 in Uruguay. Three quarters of its 200,000 employees work in South America.
The group has been fighting for years to get out of debt and now hopes to reduce its debt in half within the framework of a conciliation procedure that can last until October 25.
(Also: These were the 1,000 largest companies in Colombia in 2022)
The company hopes to convert “at least all unsecured debts” into capital, that is, more than 3 billion euros (3.2 billion dollars). This means that the creditors who lent you this money, instead of getting it back, lost themselves to shareholders in the group.
The chain has special discounts every week.
Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, who controls 10% of Casino’s shares, can trade various creditors up to 40% of the debt for liquidity or shares, or both.
This businessman and the French billionaire Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière defend one of the offers to gain control of the group. Kretinsky has offered to contribute 750 million euros (817 million dollars) within the framework of a capital increase of more than 1,000 million euros (1,089 million dollars).
The other offer, presented by the trio of French businessmen Xavier Niel, Matthieu Pigasse and Moez-Alexandre Zouari, also plans to offer casino creditors the opportunity to “reinvest in capital”.
Preserve your liquidity
Casino also plans to raise 900 million euros (980 million dollars) “in the form of own resources” to “provide the company with the necessary funds to implement its strategy” 2023-2025, featured in a press conference.
(Read: Grupo Éxito, getting closer to listing on the Brazilian stock market)
In addition to the sale of its stake in Assai, last week, it already announced other measures to “preserve its liquidity.”
The French State advanced a deferral of 300 million euros (about 327 million dollars) of social and tax contributions, and asked its creditors to suspend interest payments and debt maturities until October. After the announcements on Monday, Casino’s share price fell 6.13% on the Paris stock market and that of its parent Rallye fell 7.60%.
AFP
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