a standoff between billionaires is announced to take over the retail giant

Who will take over Casino? Two camps have already made themselves known, Tuesday, July 4, each wishing to get their hands on the group, its Franprix, Géant or Monoprix stores, in debt to the tune of almost six billion euros.

The Casino group is first concerned by a first offer issued by shareholders, holders of 24% of the capital of the company. This is Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, boss of Fimalac and French businessman in his seventies well introduced in political, economic and financial circles, owner of the rating agency Fitch. He has allied himself with the new strongman of capitalism in France, the Czech Daniel Kretinsky, who has already invested heavily in the media by buying She And Marianne. He also rose to the capital of World and is tipped to position itself in the takeover of Editis, a huge publishing house that Vincent Bolloré is forced to sell to take control of Hachette. The two men have offered to put on the table some 900 million euros, precisely the amount that Casino considers it needs to revive.

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The second offer comes from a trio of equally well-known businessmen: Xavier Niel, the boss of Free, Mathieu Pigasse, the former boss of the investment bank Lazard, and Moez-Alexandre Zouari. The latter seems less well known to the general public, but not to the small medium of large food distribution since he is already the reference shareholder of Picard frozen foods. It also holds the largest network of franchises in the Casino group today.

A priority passage in front of the creditors

Both offers must now be presented to Casino’s supervisory board and above all to the group’s creditors. The challenge today is how to get rid of at least part of this astronomical debt of almost six billion euros. A conciliation procedure has been launched to try to reach an amicable agreement: Casino is asking investors to draw a line under part of the debt, to transform it into capital. But some have already let it be known at the beginning of the week that they do not intend to give Casino a gift.

It remains to be seen whether one of the two offers that remain to be detailed will find favor in their eyes. Casino now has 200,000 employees worldwide, including a quarter in France. For their part, the unions want at all costs to avoid a sale by cutting, synonymous with many layoffs.