Nothing has been decided yet, but the horizon cleared up a little more on Monday, July 17, for Daniel Kretinsky, when the Casino board of directors gave its agreement to continue negotiations with the businessman. Czech Republic, as part of his project to take over the group, which he is leading with the French billionaire Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière. Above all, the entrepreneur is now alone in the running, the trio made up of Xavier Niel, Matthieu Pigasse and Moez-Alexandre Zouari having finally decided to throw in the towel the day before.
The plan is now known: the future owner of Editis intends to bail out the distributor for an amount of 1.2 billion euros, followed by a new envelope to make investments. As for the remaining debt – some 5 billion euros – a restructuring is envisaged with the support of creditors in order to transform it into capital. An agreement is expected by the end of the month. In the meantime, talks with the group will continue. In sight: the epilogue of July 27, the date on which the commercial court must render its verdict. Once the process is finalized, the hardest part will begin for Daniel Kretinsky.
Put Casino signs back in the green
If Monoprix and Franprix, properties of the group, are today in the green, it is quite the opposite for Casino. The supers and hypers of the century-old brand are in free fall: in the second quarter of 2023, their sales fell by 17.1% and 13.9% respectively compared to the same period last year, after a start of similar year. The Saint-Etienne distributor urgently needs to relaunch. At the end of May, the group has already signed an agreement with Intermarché to offload 180 stores, whose turnover is around 1.6 billion euros. A drop of water in an ocean, the group owning a total of 6,900 stores in France.
To carry out this recovery, Philippe Palazzi, former Metro – 40% controlled by Daniel Kretinsky – and Lactalis, is expected to become the new CEO of the group. At his side, Jean-Paul Mochet, former boss of Monoprix and Franprix, and member of the Casino house for 22 years, could make his return. A personality appreciated by the unions. “Jean-Paul Mochet has all the skills to carry out the transformation. He has always known how to do business with a unique reactivity. He gets up in the morning with an idea and he goes to the end”, says Nathalie Devienne, secretary general of the SNTA-FO, the first organization of the group. Frank Rosenthal, retail expert, confirms: “He knows the company very well from the inside and knows what the investment gaps are, which the shareholder had taken to refusing him. He does not come back to save, but rather to put in place a plan of conquest.”
Adjust product prices
First project in perspective: lowering the prices of products in stores. With inflation, the brand’s customers have deserted the aisles of the brand’s supermarkets and hypermarkets. “Casino has always been associated with a high price, but with service and quality there. Today, this promise is no longer kept”, assures Nathalie Devienne.
An upgrade strategy that has already begun to put in place Magali Daubinet-Salen, appointed at the beginning of April general manager of the Casino brands. “We have created a significant delta between our prices and those of competitors, which means that we have lost customers. This is what I endeavored to correct when I took up my position”, specifies this native of the Saint-Etienne basin, who has spent most of his career with the group. Hurry up. “Casino will have to be brought back into the race which has been followed by all the large retailers in recent months. degraded”, emphasizes Frank Rosenthal.
Renovate Monoprix and Franprix stores
To gain in competitiveness, the group will also have to take out the checkbook to renovate its fleet. “Monoprix is the nugget of the group and it works well, but the investment in the stores is very, very low. This sign would go even better with supermarkets brought up to date”, adds the expert. The same goes for Franprix.
As for the different Casino brands, that’s another story. Nothing says that Daniel Kretinsky, if the negotiations are finalized, will not continue to yield hypermarkets and supermarkets. At the beginning of July, in the media slump that surrounded it, the distributor, which is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year, signed a partnership with the Prosol group, owner of the Grand Frais and Fresh brands, to develop its range of fresh products. The Czech billionaire might be tempted to sell him space.
“Tomorrow you replace a Casino supermarket in a catchment area with a Grand Frais, this will have a completely different effect on customers”, assures Frank Rosenthal. “For the rest of the park that will not be sold, it will take money to reinvest and get these stores back on their feet. In recent years, we have had a drastic wave of staff reductions. This has led to departures that have not not really been replaced”, specifies the central CGT union representative, Ali Eloued. But the new recruitments should only intervene in a second, even a third time, when the machine will be relaunched. “To become attractive again in a very battled market, you have to know how to be patient. It’s always easier to recruit when everything is going well. Just because you’re going to invest a billion euros doesn’t mean you’ll be back. customers”, recalls Frank Rosenthal.
Finally, there is a subject that the probable future buyer of the Casino group will have to tackle head-on: the consolidation of Cdiscount’s place in the French e-commerce landscape. If Amazon seems untouchable today, the sales site founded in 1998 could benefit from the Fnac Darty network, of which Daniel Kretinsky is now the largest shareholder with more than 25% of the shares. “Amazon dominates the market by far. Behind it, we find Cdiscount, then Fnac Darty. This can become a group that could be a powerful challenger to Amazon with a large store base,” said Frank Rosenthal. So many projects that will have to be tackled in the coming months, at the risk of seeing the group sink a little more.