Casino - comment

Casino placed 18.8% of the share capital in Assai for total proceeds of c. €730m. This reduces Casino’s stake in Assai to 11.7% and will no longer be controlled and therefore consolidated in Casino’s accounts. We firmly believe these sales proceeds will be used as part of any negotiations in relation to the potential merger with Teract and deleveraging at Casino. We suspect it will be used to reduce bank debt leverage. However, this sale removes any potential upside from the Assai and leaves the Rallye structure further out of the money.