Casino transaction - Sale of Leader shops

All,

Following up on our commentary on Friday, we spoke to the Company Friday evening and again today.  
As of June 2019, Casino had 665 Leader Price stores, of which 330 were franchised. In the transaction announced last week, Casino sold 567 to Aldi France, and are now left with only franchisee stores, meaning they retain 98 franchisee stores and have sold the other 232 to Aldi France. Importantly, prior to selling them to Aldi, Casino had bought back those 232 franchisee stores for less than €50m. Thus the cash flow from the announced transaction is substantially travelling to Casino.
According to Casino, the company intends to continue to supply the remaining 98 franchisee stores, all of which management consider currently profitable. We are not yet aware of what branding these stores will have going forward.
So net proceeds from Aldi to Casino should be in the region of €650m.  
In the transaction, there was limited property sold to Aldi France (perhaps one or two of the three warehouses) so this transaction does not impact the security of the recently issued SSNs that have specific security over certain property within the estate.  

Any questions, please do not hesitate to call.


Tomas