Casino: Intermarché and Auchan have “made commitments” on employment, assures Bruno Le Maire

The Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire indicated on Thursday that he had received the day before the managers of Intermarché and Auchan, who must buy most of the stores of the distributor in difficulty Casino, and assured that they had “made commitments » regarding job preservation. “Yesterday I received the managers of Intermarché and Auchan. I tell them: Listen, I ask you only one thing: you must preserve employment. They have made commitments and I will ensure that these commitments are kept,” the minister said on Europe 1.

Bruno Le Maire, who “received the Casino unions a week ago”, will receive them “again today to tell them that job protection” constitutes his “absolute priority”. Representatives of the group's 50,000 employees in France (200,000 worldwide at the end of 2022) fear a major social breakdown since Casino said it was ready to sell almost all of its large format stores - hypermarkets and supermarkets - due to the deterioration of its financial health.

The group's management told AFP on Tuesday that nearly 12,300 jobs are affected by a change of brand as part of the proposed sale of 313 super and hypermarkets. Employees, for their part, fear 6,000 job cuts, particularly in headquarters and logistics. Furthermore, the judicial administrators at the bedside of the beleaguered distributor have summoned shareholders and creditors “to decide” by January 11 “on the draft accelerated safeguard plans which will be submitted to them,” Casino announced Thursday in a press release. . In detail, creditors in particular will be able to vote “electronically between December 21, 2023 and January 10, 2024”, with votes counted on January 11. Shareholders are invited to vote “in person” on January 11, specifies the group.

Casino agreed in July with candidates for its takeover, the billionaires Daniel Kretinsky and Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière backed by the British fund Attestor, for a capital increase of 1.2 billion euros in total, and for a sharp reduction of its debt, which has become unsustainable. It is on this project, which will greatly dilute the current shareholders, starting with the one who is still CEO for a few months, Jean-Charles Naouri, and consist of a shortfall of some 5 billion euros for all creditors. of the group, that these parties must decide. This does not normally cause suspense, the major creditors having already given their agreement to this plan supervised by the French authorities.