French retailer Casino changes leadership team as boss Naouri's era ends

By Dominique Vidalon

PARIS (Reuters) -Food retailer Casino said on Thursday it had completed its financial restructuring and a new leadership team formed around Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky was taking control, ending the 30-year reign of Casino's owner Jean-Charles Naouri.

France's seventh-largest supermarket group by market share, was brought to the verge of default after years of debt-fuelled acquisitions and recent losses in market share to rivals.

The restructuring of Casino by a Kretinsky-led consortium massively dilutes the stake of current shareholders, most notably Naouri, who led Casino by controlling it through his holding company Rallye.

Casino's shares, which have been impacted in recent days by reserved capital increases tied to the bailout plan, were down 65% to 0.037 euros as trade resumed following suspension on March 27.

Casino said the completion of the restructuring resulted in a change of control and a new board was named, with former French secretary of state for pensions and Auchan executive Laurent Pietraszewski becoming chairman of the new Casino board. Former Metro and Lactalis executive Philippe Palazzi becomes chief executive.

Casino's new executive committee includes Angelique Cristofari, a former Louis Delhaize finance chief who becomes the supermarket group's chief financial officer.

A June 11 shareholder meeting will be asked to ratify all these appointments.

In February, Casino reported a consolidated net loss of 5.7 billion euros for 2023, widening from 316 million euros the previous year, and said it will not publish a revised 2024 forecast due to an imminent change in leadership.

WORKFORCE PLAN IN APRIL

The Kretinsky-led consortium has said it was prepared to spend over 1.5 billion euros in capital expenditures between 2024 and 2028 to revive Casino's business and aimed to multiply Earnings Before Interest, Taxes , Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA) by more than seven times to 920 million euros in 2028.

The new leadership has promised to implement an "every day low price" strategy, invest in stores and boost marketing expenditure, improve private label offerings and generate synergies across the group's store banners.

It is in charge of a slimmed-down group as 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 city-centre stores Franprix.

The sale sharply reduces Casino's size to some 8 billion euros in sales from 33.6 billion euros in 2022, halving its market share in France to around 3%, analysts have said.

Casino had a workforce of 50,000 at end-2023 and the sale of the French hypermarkets and supermarkets is expected to result in the transfer of 16,000 people.

The sale will also impact Casino's remaining workforce, notably support, logistics and administrative positions. Unions have said they feared 6,000 jobs could be at risk.

Casino will communicate on the impact on workforce in April, a group spokesperson said, without citing a figure.

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Benoit Van Overstraeten and Shounak Dasgupta and Ros Russell)