Casino began writing a new page in its history on Wednesday. The distributor, managed for 20 years by Jean-Charles Naouri, has passed into the hands of its buyers who will have a lot to do to relaunch it.
It was almost a year ago, on April 24, 2023: Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, second shareholder of Casino behind the irremovable Jean-Charles Naouri, proposed injecting 750 million euros to rescue a group strangled by his debt, on condition of taking control and crushing most of the debts owed. The battle was long but ultimately, the dilution of current shareholders via capital increases allowed Daniel Kretinsky, Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière and the Attestor fund to take control of Casino.
“A very provincial company”
The new board of directors of the distributor, chaired by the former Macronist Secretary of State Laurent Pietraszewski and including among its members the general director Philippe Palazzi and Athina Onassis – descendant of the famous Greek shipowner Aristotle Onassis – met on Wednesday in end of the day. He notably appointed the distributor’s new executive committee, among which the bosses of the Monoprix, Casino, Franprix and CDiscount brands remain in office.
“It’s a Parisian group from the point of view of turnover, but from the point of view of the number of stores, we are a very provincial company,” assured in an interview with AFP and the Progress broadcast on Wednesday evening the new general director, Philippe Palazzi. According to him, Casino is “not yet out of danger” and there will “probably be a voluntary departure plan”. Its goal is to make it a champion of “proximity”.
Numbers in free fall
The distributor’s debt must be reduced from 7.4 billion euros at the end of 2023 to just over 2.6 billion euros, with repayment deadlines ranging from January 2027 to the end of March 2028. The distributor’s French workforce will increase from 50,000 at the end of 2022 to 28,212 after the sale of numerous stores to its competitors Intermarché, Auchan and Carrefour. Furthermore, Casino almost no longer has an international presence.
In total, once the transfers already recorded have been fully finalized, the new group will have a turnover of around 9 billion euros – ten times less than Carrefour -, half of which will come from the Monoprix brand. It will have 8,634 points of sale under the Monoprix, Naturalia, Franprix, Viva, Spar or Petit Casino brands.
The group is very strong in Ile-de-France, especially in Paris where it represents 54.5% of the retail sales area, according to a study by the Atelier Parisien d’urbanisme (Apur).