Steinhoff, Rallye casino, Thomas Cook

All,

Some miscellaneous news of note and Thomas Cook:

1) Steinhoff: Frustrated with the lack of apparent management change at Steinhoff, shareholders have requested the appointment of an investigator and additional board member. The Amsterdam court has scheduled a hearing for May 23rd. However for the continuation of the restructuring plan this should have little implication.

2) Rallye / Casino: GPA, the company’s major asset in South America, reported sales growth, but a drop in gross profit. Each metric is reflective of developments at its Multivarejo division and in particular its cash and carry business, the cash cow of GPA. 
More importantly, the company is in talks to sell a further 3.1% of its stake in Via Varejo for E40m. What is somewhat unclear is the motivation for doing it. GPA have been looking to sell the asset for some time. Selling small increments via TRS hardly inspires confidence that there is a natural buyer in sight. Management’s comments were not conclusive. We’ve been wondering if the sale will inflate revenues or what the proceeds would be used for. 
In the scheme of things the market did not expect GPA to find a buyer and so the news is not tremendously negative. But for Rallye / Casino it does incrementally remove another path out of trouble. 
Tomas has been on the call yesterday and knows more.

3) Thomas Cook has been taking longer than expected. The company’s reporting is a shambles and leaves an annual £100m of cash outflows unexplained. 
We will wrap it up and make it available. Tomas knows about everything on the name and we have a view anyhow that is unlikely to change materially. We will continue work as we go along.

Wolfgang