(News Bulletin 247) – A concert made up of several companies owned by Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière and Gespafro announced that it would increase its stake to 12.05% of the capital of the Saint-Etienne distributor.

There is movement in Casino’s capital. The concert made up of the companies Fimalac, Fimalac Développement and Gespafro increased its stake to 12.05% of the capital of the Saint-Etienne company in great difficulty. In detail, Fimalac holds 9.39%, Fimalac Développement 1% and Gespafro 1.65%. The gig also holds 8.36% of the voting rights, according to the same notice.

As a result of this agreement, Fimalac, which until then was Casino’s third largest shareholder, “may be granted, at its sole option and at any time”, more than 10 million Casino shares for “early redemption” of receivables. In total, Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière controls more than 13 million Casino shares.

In detail, he says he holds an option on 9.5 million shares “unconditionally exercisable at a value corresponding to the last closing price preceding the exercise of the option, expiring on June 12, 2025”. And “an option on 716,835 shares” exercisable on January 22, 2025.

Fimalac’s interest in Casino

This announcement comes a few days after Fimalac officially confirmed “studying a possible participation for an amount of 150 million euros” in a capital increase project for Casino, a distributor which employs more than 200,000 people worldwide, including a large quarter in France which is struggling to get out of debt.

This project is led by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, who owns more than 10% of Casino’s capital. He intends to take control of Casino via a capital increase of more than one billion euros in total, including 750 million euros provided by him.

This offer, submitted at the end of April, is challenged by “a preliminary expression of interest” from the trio of businessmen Xavier Niel (Free), Matthieu Pigasse and Moez-Alexandre Zouari for a “reinforcement of equity” of Casino up to 1.1 billion euros.

Casino entered the conciliation procedure at the end of May for a period of four months in order to renegotiate its debt, which amounts to 6.4 billion euros in net debt for Casino and around 3 billion for its parent company Rallye.

Reducing Casino’s debt would imply that its creditors, major French and international banks, European or American investment funds and institutional players, agree to draw a line under the money owed by the group, in undoubtedly very significant proportions.

(With AFP)