(News Bulletin 247) – The title Casino jumped on Monday after having already progressed strongly Friday at the end of the session. After the withdrawal of Teract, the market seems to be making arbitrages on the very uncertain future of the company.

If it is difficult to know what the Casino group will look like in a few months and with which shareholders at its head, one thing is certain: its action is linked to large-scale movements on the stock market.

Sluggish for most of the day, the action of the Saint-Etienne distributor in great financial difficulty, ended Friday’s session up 8.8% while being played in the last hour of trading. And this Monday the title continues to climb, rising 9% around 10:30 a.m.

Rumors on all floors

“The withdrawal of the merger project with Teract, which was an industrial scenario, reinforces the probability of a potential dismantling of the company and perhaps certain hedge funds want to play this scenario”, considers a Parisian analyst.

Teract and Casino have effectively waived last week to conclude a merger. However, the three co-founders of Teract, Xavier Niel, investment banker Matthieu Pigasse, and distribution specialist Moez-Alexandre Zouari have announced that they want “on their behalf” to “emerge a lasting industrial and financial solution” for the group. . According to BFM Business, the three men could create a dedicated investment vehicle in which they would place 200 to 300 million euros. The trio would also rely on the support of creditors to raise a total of one billion euros.

This project would come to compete with that of Daniel Kretinsky who proposes to him to bail out Casino up to 1.1 billion euros, of which 750 million euros would be brought via the personal holding company of the Czech businessman, Vesa Equity Investment.

According to several media, discussions between the billionaire and Auchan would also have taken place. According The echoesthe leaders of the northern group spoke with Daniel Kretinksy but without however offering him financial support which would help him to buy Casino. Le Figaro reported to him that the Mulliez family, owner of Auchan, would have proposed to the Czech businessman to merge Auchan France with Casino, once the takeover by Daniel Krestinksy has been completed. But the latter Kretinsky would not have followed up on this family proposal.

Letter A indicated on Monday that the Morgan Stanley bank was “following” this file very closely on behalf of its client Carrefour. Alexandre Bompard, the CEO of Carrefour, would chain the “observation meetings” with one of the flagship bankers of the American bank.

Contacted, spokespersons for Casino and Carrefour did not comment immediately, while a spokesperson for Auchan was not immediately available.

Recall that Casino entered a conciliation procedure with these creditors a few weeks ago, which should allow it to potentially renegotiate its heavy debt, which reached just over 5 billion euros at the end of March. This procedure could, for example, lead to a partial waiver of claims by creditors in the form of a discount on the debt. This procedure should last four months and may be extended for an additional month.