France’s Casino confirms it has received offers for stores

Heavily indebted French supermarket group Casino has received expressions of interest for its hypermarket and supermarket stores, the company said on Monday, declining to name the bidders or number of stores it intends to sell.

Casino has been preparing to sell more supermarkets to Intermarche, a unit of Groupement Les Mousquetaires, or even put its remaining hypermarkets and supermarkets in France up for sale to the highest bidder, French daily Les Echos reported on Monday.

This comes as Casino warned last week of likely 2023 losses for its core French business owing to a slower than expected turnaround at its hypermarkets division.

The group has already received expressions of interest for its remaining 291 supermarkets, including 60 franchises, and 52 large-scale hypermarkets, the newspaper said.

Candidates, which include most of Casino’s French rivals and notably Carrefour (EPA:CARR), must submit their offers by Wednesday, Les Echos said. Carrefour declined to comment.

France’s sixth-largest retailer has been building back its business after an October deal to avert bankruptcy through a debt restructuring with its main creditors, led by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky.

In a statement on Monday, Casino said that any disposal must be approved by the consortium of creditors led by Kretinsky in accordance with the lock-up agreement reached on Oct. 5.

Kretinsky’s camp declined to comment.

The group is facing the consequences of years of debt-fuelled deals that, after recent losses in market share and revenue declines, have put it on the verge of bankruptcy.

In October, Casino sold 61 stores to Intermarche for 209 million euros ($227.96 million). Under an agreement reached in May, Intermarche has a call option, exercisable within three years at the latest, for a second group of stores representing 510 million euros.

In France, Casino also owns high-end supermarket chain Monoprix as well as convenience store chain Franprix while it controls GPA in Brazil, its second-largest market behind France.

As of Sept. 30, Casino had 862 Monoprix stores and over 1,100 Franprix stores in France.

($1 = 0.9168 euros)