In great financial difficulty, the group is in a period of conciliation with its creditors. He appeals to the president of the commercial court to obtain delays on the reimbursement of certain debts or interest.
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Casino will ask “in the next few days” of the “grace periods” to freeze the repayment of certain debts or interest, announces the group, Monday July 3. He wants to avoid finding himself in default on his debt before the end of the conciliation period with his creditors, which opened at the end of May. The distributor had already asked certain creditors not to claim payment of the sums due during these amicable discussions, which may last until the end of October at the latest. But some refused, and the group is now appealing to the “president of the commercial court”.
Casino’s net debt amounts to a total of 6.4 billion euros, and that of its parent company Rallye to around 3 billion euros. The group indicates that on June 30 it did not respect the obligation to have a gross debt that does not exceed 3.5 times its gross operating surplus (a profitability indicator), which allows it to to be able to repay its creditors. “The group could therefore, on the date of delivery of the certificate concerned [c’est-à-dire au plus tard à fin août]to be in default” as such, “which would lead to a cross default in respect of part of its financial debt at the level of its operating subsidiaries”.
The group, born 125 years ago, employs more than 200,000 people worldwide, including a large quarter in France. Casino hopes to erase part of its debt by transforming its creditors into shareholders, in exchange for the non-recovery of their money, which will lead to a massive increase in the number of shares in circulation and therefore a drop in the value of those -this.