Le Monde claims to have consulted a letter signed by Kenneth McGrath, the general manager of Lidl to David Alhadeff, one of the partners of Attestor in charge of the Casino file, in which he draws up a “target” list of 300 Casino supermarkets and 300 Monoprix.
Contacted by AFP, Lidl declined to comment on the information.
Attestor confirmed with AFP “marks of interest” from Lidl but affirmed that “there are no discussions” at present with Lidl, saying he is “committed to a long-term vision term” with Daniel Kretinsky and Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière.
The Attestor fund has joined Lacharrière’s Kretinsky-Ladreit duo to form a consortium that filed a revised offer on Saturday, pushing the competitors it was initially discussing with, the Niel-Pigasse-Zouari trio united in a 3F company, to throw the sponge sunday.
It was in the context of 3F’s offer that Lidl’s letter was sent to Attestor, adds a close source.
The Casino group gave the green light on Monday to an improved offer for recapitalization and restructuring of its debt from the consortium led by Mr. Kretinsky.
“I am committed to hyper (markets) and super (markets) and to preserving the maximum possible perimeter,” the Czech billionaire said on Sunday in an interview with the newspaper Les Echos.
At the end of May, when entering the conciliation procedure to enable it to negotiate the restructuring of its enormous debt with its creditors, Casino had also announced an agreement with Intermarché for the sale of more than a hundred Casino stores.