The CEO of Casino, Jean-Charles Naouri, was placed in police custody on Thursday, June 1, in the premises of the Paris judicial police as part of an investigation for "manipulation of prices in an organized gang, active private corruption and passive" and "insider trading", learned Le Monde confirming information from the Sunday Journal and Agence France-Presse (AFP). His police custody was lifted in the evening, according to several sources familiar with the matter cited by AFP.
The preliminary investigation was opened in 2020 by the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) and follows a report from the Financial Markets Authority (AMF). It relates to facts that date back to 2018 and 2019.
This investigation concerns the links of Mr. Naouri and the Casino group (Monoprix, Franprix, Cdiscount, etc.) with press boss Nicolas Miguet, a source familiar with the matter told AFP. This businessman and press boss, also known for his political career as leader of the Rassemblement des taxpayers français party, has been convicted on several occasions by the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) in particular for price manipulation. .
The announcement of this police custody caused the company's share price to fall (-9.43% over the session, -48.31% since the start of the year), to its lowest level. historical (5.05 euros).
Significant indebtedness
In May 2022, AMF investigators visited the group's headquarters as well as the home of Jean-Charles Naouri. In its recent financial documentation, Casino says that this investigation "deriv[ed] from a proceeding brought against a former consultant of the Casino group" and specifies that the group as well as the "executives concerned formally contest these allegations and have initiated all necessary remedies".
Casino formalized on Friday its entry into a conciliation procedure for a period of four months in order to renegotiate its large debt, announcing its desire to sell a hundred supermarkets and hypermarkets to the Intermarché group.
Casino, which employs more than 50,000 people in France and 200,000 worldwide under many brands, has been struggling for years to get out of debt, so far without success. It arouses envy, on the part of billionaire Daniel Kretinsky as well as the distribution group Teract, whose majority shareholder is the giant of the food industry InVivo. The first, already a 10% shareholder in Casino, proposed on April 24 to inject 750 million euros into the group via a capital increase of more than one billion euros.
The second, mainly present today in the garden center sector (Gamm vert, Jardiland) and Boulangeries Louise, entered into discussions several months ago with Casino to integrate the French activity of the distributor. Teract's CEO, Moez-Alexandre Zouari, reached out to Daniel Kretinsky and called for working together at the distributor's bedside.
These covetousnesses could in any case translate in the long term into the loss of control of Casino by Jean-Charles Naouri, the largest shareholder since 1992 and CEO since 2005. eminent place" within the group if his operation is completed. For his part, Jean-Charles Naouri recently modified the statutes of Rallye, the company through which he controls Casino, to push back the age limit for his presidency from 75 to 78 years old.
