Casino, Guichard-Perrachon completes restructuring transactions

By Sarah Lizee

Olympia, Wash., March 28 – Casino, Guichard-Perrachon SA (Groupe Casino) announced that it has completed its financial restructuring, according to a Thursday press release.

All the transactions provided for in Casino's accelerated safeguard plans approved by the Paris Commercial Court on Feb. 26 were implemented on Wednesday, the company said.

As part of the transactions, the company’s €400 million 6 5/8% senior notes due 2026 (ISIN: XS2276596538) and €525 million 5¼% senior notes due 2027 (ISIN: XS2328426445) were converted to new ordinary shares, resulting in the cancellation of the notes.

As a result of these transactions, Casino's share capital is comprised of 37,304,080,735 shares, representing 37,351,145,246 theoretical voting rights.

The completion of Casino’s financial restructuring resulted in a change of control of Casino group to France Retail Holdings Sarl, an entity ultimately controlled by Daniel Kretinsky.

Trading in Casino shares, which was suspended since market close on March 26, was set to resume on Thursday morning.

New leadership

Casino has a new board that includes Laurent Pietraszewski as chairman of the board of directors; Philippe Palazzi as director and chief executive officer; Nathalie Andrieux, Elisabeth Sandager, Athina Onassis, Pascal Clouzard and Branislav Miskovic as directors; and Thomas Piquemal, Thomas Doerane and Martin Plavec as censors.

However, Doerane, who was appointed on the proposal of Trinity Investments DAC, whose management company is Attestor Ltd., informed Casino on Thursday of his decision to temporarily renounce his appointment in order to prevent Trinity, Attestor, their affiliates or representatives from holding insider information concerning the group.

On June 11, a proposal will be made at a general meeting of shareholders to ratify the appointments.

An employee representative will be appointed later.

The company also announced a new strategic committee, audit committee, nominations and renumeration committee, governance committee and executive committee.

Next steps

Casino said its planning transactions involving its share capital that will be carried out in April, including a reverse share split and a reduction in its share capital.

Casino is a food retailer based in Saint-Etienne, France. The company filed its Chapter 15 petition on Feb. 15 under case number 24-10252.

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