The distributor in financial difficulties Casino has, as expected, concluded a binding agreement for the restructuring of its debt with its main creditors, in continuation of the agreement in principle reached at the end of July, it announced Thursday, October 5 in the morning .
Casino, 200,000 employees worldwide including 50,000 in France under well-known brands like Monoprix, Franprix or Grupo de Acucar, was strangled by a debt of 6.4 billion euros at the end of 2022 but its restructuring is made possible by a takeover offer from Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, Frenchman Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière and the British fund Attestor.
This agreement provides, on the one hand, for the contribution of 1.2 billion euros in new money, notably by these takeover candidates, on the other hand, for Casino’s debt to be reduced by nearly 5 billion euros and that Casino’s activities in Latin America, for which three quarters of the group’s approximately 200,000 employees work, be sold.
Request for accelerated backup placement
The group declared in a press release that it had “concluded a lock-up agreement relating to its financial restructuring”, on the one hand with the consortium of buyers, and on the other hand with “creditors economically holding 75% of Term Loan B1 , the main commercial banking groups and certain of the above-mentioned creditors economically holding 92% of the RCF, as well as the holders of the bonds issued by Quatrim representing 58% of these bonds. In other words, these are the group’s so-called secured creditors. For unsecured creditors, Casino indicates that it intends to “continue its discussions” in order to “obtain their support for this”.
Casino will then have to request its placement in accelerated safeguard, a process at the end of which recalcitrant creditors will be brought on board “in a forced manner if necessary” since the law provides for it, noted several sources at the end of July when the agreement was signed. of principle. The amicable conciliation procedure in which discussions on Casino’s debt are held runs until October 25 and Casino plans to carry out the restructuring of its debt in the first quarter of 2024.