The food distribution brands Auchan and Les Mousquetaires/Intermarché have entered into “exclusive negotiations” with their competitor in serious financial difficulty Casino for the purchase of “almost the entire scope of hypermarkets and supermarkets” of this group, according to press releases this Monday.
According to Casino, this represents “313 stores” for which “all employees of the transferred stores would be taken over” by the Mousquetaires/Intermarché and Auchan group. The operation, “subordinated” to the ongoing financial restructuring of Casino, “could take place before the end of the first quarter of 2024”, specifies the group.
1.6 billion euros
Most of the big names in the food distribution sector have been associated in recent days with Casino, which, in dire straits, has said it is ready to study offers from competitors for the takeover of all or part of its large format stores. , hyper and supermarkets. But only Auchan and Intermarché had formalized an application for the takeover of the entire park, which according to The echoescould be around 1.6 billion euros.
“By joining forces to buy the Casino stores, Auchan and Les Mousquetaires are carrying out a project with 100% French capital, a project which would also strengthen French food sovereignty and support for the agricultural world and the territories”, argue the two brands in a joint press release.
For its part, Casino indicated that the proposed sale would be carried out “on the basis of a fixed enterprise value of 1.35 billion euros (excluding real estate)”, and that “the scope of integrated stores represents a figure total business for the year 2022 of approximately 3.6 billion euros excluding tax (excluding gasoline) for 313 stores. “Certain real estate assets could also be part of the scope of the operation”, further indicates Casino, according to which the money generated by the operation would make it possible to “support the envisaged financial restructuring, the investment in the maintained scope, and the social support for the employees concerned.
A group always had crisis
The Casino group, which still employed 200,000 employees worldwide, including 50,000 in France at the end of 2022, signed an agreement in July providing for the restructuring of unsustainable debt, with a change in shareholding by March–April. 2024. It is the Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, the Frenchman Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière and the British fund Attestor, who must take control on this date.
But in the meantime, commercial performances have not improved much and the group, still led for a few months by Jean-Charles Naouri, had to lower its financial ambitions several times, before saying it was ready to sell stores if competitors were interested.
For their part, Auchan and Intermarché have confirmed their merger, which they had confirmed on December 5 by announcing “to discuss the bases of establishing a long-term purchasing alliance” in order to become the first French purchasing center. Always according to The echoes, the two distributors should equitably distribute the stores purchased from Casino. The historic site, in Saint-Etienne, was the site of numerous demonstrations by company employees, fearing for the future of their jobs.