Lidl, which wanted to take over 600 stores of the French chain, is losing out. Lidl parent company Schwarz intervened at the last minute in the take-over-battle of the French Casino Group. Taking over the 300 Casino and 300 Monoprix stores would be the ideal way for Lidl to expand within the neighboring country of home country Germany.
Now, the ailing Casino Group has fallen into the hands of Czech entrepreneur Daniel Křetínský. Reuters news agency reports that the takeover by Křetínský has been approved. Under the leadership of the new owner, Casino Group has entered into a long-awaited agreement with its creditors, hoping to avert bankruptcy.
The final offer of Daniel Křetínský, who also has shares in the Dutch Makro and the German Metro, was chosen. He promises a capital injection of 1.2 billion euros for Casino Group. A restructuring process is underway at the French company. However, Křetínský says to keep as many people on board as possible and to hire more people in the shops and the DCs.
Casino Group has a total of 6.4 billion in debt, half of which must be repaid within two years. Earlier this month, the company announced that its debts were too high to pay and sought protection from creditors. Casino has been given longer time to pay the salaries and taxes.
The Casino Group employs about 53,000 employees.
Source: Retail Trends
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