InVivo to drop plans for Teract tie-up with Casino's French retail business -report (updated)

Teract SA

08/06/2023 13:30

(Adds details, no comments)
    By Dominique Vidalon
       PARIS, June 8 (Reuters) - French retailer Teract's
 TRACT.PA  majority shareholder InVivo is dropping plans to
merge Teract with the French retail business of debt-laden
supermarket chain Casino  CASP.PA , financial newsletter "La
Lettre A" said on Thursday.
        Teract has been in exclusive talks since March to
combine with Casino's French retail business.
    The exclusivity period for the talks expires on June 8 and
Teract has said it will issue a statement on Thursday evening.
    Casino, Teract and InVivo declined comment on the report.
    In a separate development regarding Casino, the newsletter
also said that Teract backers entrepreneur Moez-Alexandre
Zouari, tech billionaire Xavier Niel and investment banker
Matthieu Pigasse, plan to set up an investment vehicle
code-named "3F" (founders, friends & family) to raise funds with
Casino's creditors.
        Pigasse and Zouari did not immediately respond to
requests for comment. Niel declined to comment.
    Last month Casino, which is headed and controlled by veteran
entrepreneur Jean-Charles Naouri and owns the Franprix and
Monoprix chains, officially started court-backed negotiations
with its creditors while weighing a tie-up proposal with Teract
and another from Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky.
    In April, Kretínsky, already Casino's second-largest
shareholder, offered to take control of Casino through a 1.1
billion euro ($1.18 billion) capital increase, a move that would
dilute Casino's boss Naouri and take control of the supermarket
chain from him.
    Kretinsky's proposal is backed by investor Marc Ladreit de
Lacharrière, whose Fimalac group is now Casino’s third-largest
shareholder.
     Casino had a consolidated net debt of 6.4 billion euros at
the end of last year. It faces 3 billion euros' worth of debt
repayments in the next two years and the holding company through
which Naouri controls the company is also heavily indebted.
    Teract was established in 2022 through the merger of
agri-food cooperative InVivo's retail business with an
acquisition vehicle backed by Xavier Niel and Pigasse. It
operates in the food and pet/garden sectors.


($1 = 0.9316 euros)

 (Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; additional reporting by
Mathieu Rosemain and Gus Trompiz, Editing by Benoit Van
Overstraeten and Susan Fenton)
 ((dominique.vidalon@thomsonreuters.com; +33149495432; Reuters
Messaging: dominique.vidalon.reuters.com@reuters.net))