Casino - comment

Casino has entered the next stage in its restructuring, reaching an agreement in principle with EPGC (Krentinsky), Fimalac, Attestor and some of its secured creditors, mainly at least 2/3rd of its Term Loan lenders.  In addition, French banking groups (holding, together with some of the above-mentioned creditors, more than two-thirds of the RCF) have also confirmed their agreement in principle.  

As part of the announcement, Casino has released some information that was part of the forward-looking agreement provided to the stakeholders in order to cleanse Casino’s stakeholders.  This included forward projections for the remainder of FY23 (2023 Re-forecast), the Consortium’s Business Plan and an update on its Real Estate assets, mainly valuation related to the outstanding Quantrim bonds. 

Due to further deteriorating performance, the original 2023 Business Pan communicated on June 26th is no longer valid.  The Company has re-forecasted its expectations, reducing EBITDA for all business segments, but mainly EBITDA in the Hypermarkets and Supermarkets.  The re-forecasts project a reduction in sales of €381m, the majority related to the Convenience segment.  There is a larger reduction (€225m reduction) in EBITDA to €214m for FY23, with all segments forecasting a reduction in performance versus the original business plan.  The biggest impact is at the Hypermarket and Supermarket lines, with the Company now projecting a €331m loss at this segment, versus €186m loss as of June projections.  To put into context, EBITDA was €121m positive at this segment for FY22.  

The release updates IGC’s portfolio of assets as at December 2022, totalling €876m, of which €803m is included in the IGC Quantrim perimeter.  The breakdown of the assets are 25% Hypermarkets, 21% Supermarkets and 1% Convenience stores, bringing the subtotal of stores to 48%.  The Other assets include 21% for Marketing, 9% for Shopping centres, and 8% for each of the three segments (fuel stations, Land and Others).