PARIS (Reuters) – Casino shareholders and creditors have given the green light to the safeguard plan for the heavily indebted distribution group, a press release announced on Friday.
This financial restructuring project provides for the takeover of the group by a new management team led by Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky.
In major financial difficulties, Casino is currently in an accelerated safeguard procedure, expected to last until February 25, in order to implement the “lock-up” agreement sealed last October with its main creditors.
The group announced in December the opening of exclusive negotiations with Auchan Retail and Groupement Les Mousquetaires, parent company of Intermarché, to sell them 313 supermarkets and hypermarkets.
According to the Casino press release, sixteen of the seventeen classes of voters “approved the draft accelerated safeguard plans by the required majority,” the press release said.
Casino shareholders (class 7) voted 98.87% in favor of the safeguard plan. Holders of EMTN, high yield bonds and a commercial paper (class 3) voted in favor at 68.55% and holders of super-subordinated securities with an indefinite duration (class 6) at 75.62%.
The new team formed around Daniel Kretinsky must take control this year of the French distribution group, pushed to the brink of bankruptcy after years of acquisitions financed by debt and recent losses of market share against its competitors. Casino ranks seventh among supermarket groups in France.
The share of current shareholders will be massively diluted under the restructuring agreement which will end Jean-Charles Naouri’s thirty-year reign over the company, which he controlled via his holding company Rallye.
The consortium led by Kretinsky will own and control 53.7% of Casino’s capital. The financial restructuring agreement provides for an equity contribution of 1.2 billion euros as well as a reduction in the group’s net debt by 6.1 billion euros.
(Dominique Vidalon, Piotr Lipinsky, Jean-Stéphane Brosse for the , edited by Kate Entringer)
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