PARIS(Reuters) – Debt-laden retailer Casino’s consolidated net losses deepened sharply to 5.7 billion euros ($6.2 billion), it said on Wednesday, hit by its restructuring and operating losses at its large hypermarkets in the face of stiff competition.
Casino, which posted a 316 million euro consolidated net loss the previous year, said it will not publish a revised 2024 outlook in view of the company’s imminent change of leadership.
The new leadership team will be formed around Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky after the company was brought to the brink of default by years of debt-fuelled acquisitions and loss of market share to rivals.
The Paris Commerce court on Monday approved Kretinsky’s bailout plan for Casino under an accelerated protection procedure.
Casino has already reached agreements with French rivals on the sale of 288 supermarkets and hypermarkets in France, leaving it with upmarket brand Monoprix and its Franprix stores in city centres.
Casino said that in view of that disposal process and the treatment of these businesses as discontinued, last November’s core profit projections for the French operations are no longer valid.
Net financial debt at end of December 2023 was 6.2 billion euros, against 4.5 billion euros at end December 2022.
($1 = 0.9242 euros)
(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by David Goodman)
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