2023-05-03 16:31:47
Stupor in the middle of the cinema. The sale process of CGR, the second circuit of theaters in France, which seemed to arrive in its final stretch before the 76e Cannes Film Festival, was brutally arrested revealed French Film, Wednesday, May 3. The discussions broke down between Charles and Jean-Luc Raymond, the two brothers who own the 73 cinemas and the finalist buyer, the trio made up of Pierre-Antoine Capton, Matthieu Pigasse and Xavier Niel (the latter two being shareholders of the Monde individually).
In March 2022, the heirs of the founder had first wanted to sell, for nearly a billion euros, the entire group, including the hotel and catering part. The latter was finally excluded from the scope of the sale to keep only the assets related to the cinema: namely the theaters (which recorded 18 million admissions in 2022) but also the distribution company Apollo Films and the very promising system ICE Theaters immersive projection screen. The latter is already shown in 45 theaters in France, but also in the United States, Spain, Saudi Arabia and India. The expected price, of 700 million euros, was lowered during the final discussions to around 500 million euros. Twenty initial offers had been submitted to the two banks in charge of the file, Edmond de Rothschild and Société Générale, including at the end of the competition, that of the Capton-Niel-Pigasse trio, that of the investment fund Eurazeo, and that of real estate investor Aermont Capital.
Punish
The last successful offer was presented personally by the three businessmen and not through their joint audiovisual production company Mediawan, in which the American fund KKR is a shareholder. Indeed, the hypothesis of a buyout of a cinema circuit by non-European investors would have displeased the Ministry of Culture.
Was the proposed sum deemed insufficient for these heirs classified 148e French fortune of the magazine’s 2022 list Challenges ? Or is it an ego problem? The end of the negotiations was in any case accompanied by a decision as violent as it was unprecedented: the general manager of the group Jocelyn Bouyssy, general manager of CGR Cinémas since 2006 as well as three of his faithful, Jean-Charles Gau, financial director , Clément Foussal de Belerd, director of human resources and Robert Laborie, director of development were all laid off on Tuesday May 2 by Charles Raymond, with immediate effect. Laurent Desmoulins, who directs the hotel division, will do the Interim as general secretary.
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