PARIS (Reuters) – Casino said on Monday that it would seek “grace periods” from the commercial court in the coming days to avoid default on its debt during the conciliation period with its creditors.
Heavily indebted, the Saint-Etienne distributor launched official negotiations on its debt at the end of May in order to restructure it. The conciliators asked creditors not to seek payment of interest and installments due during this period but some refused, Casino said in a statement.
Faced with this refusal, likely to place the group in default of payment even before the restructuring of its debt, Casino therefore intends to request the application of “grace periods” allowing it to avoid this scenario.
On the Paris Stock Exchange, Casino shares fell 9.04% to 3.70 euros on Monday at 08:39 GMT, after losing up to more than 20% earlier in the session.
Casino’s announcement comes on the same day as the deadline for the official filing of the group’s takeover bids.
Two competing offers, both proposing to inject 1.1 billion euros into Casino, have emerged in recent weeks with, on the one hand, the trio of businessmen made up of Xavier Niel, Matthieu Pigasse and Moez-Alexandre Zouari , and on the other the Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky.
Casino’s announcement on Monday “reinforces our point of view that a capital injection of one billion euros mentioned by Mr. Kretinsky and Niel/Zouari/Pigasse will not be sufficient to guarantee the resumption of activity. “, observes Clément Genelot, analyst at Bryan Garnier.
“Disposals of assets in France, in particular Monoprix, will be necessary to finance everything, price reductions and store redevelopments,” he adds.
Contacted, the trio of businessmen Niel / Zouari / Pigasse did not wish to comment. Daniel Kretinsky’s EP Global Commerce and VESA Equity Investment did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At the end of June, Casino estimated that it needed a contribution of at least 900 million euros in equity. The group added that it wanted to reach an agreement in principle with its main creditors on the restructuring of its debt by the end of July.
(Written by Blandine Hénault, with Diana Mandia, editing by Kate Entringer)
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