The distribution group Teract (Gamm Vert, Jardiland, Boulangeries Louise), 75% owned by the agribusiness giant InVivo, lowered Tuesday its profitability forecast and announced that it will communicate Thursday evening on "the state of its discussions" with Casino. Sales for the 2022-2023 financial year are now expected to be between €880 million and €910 million versus €870 million expected at the end of February, and adjusted EBITDA, an indicator of profitability, between €95 million and €105 million, compared with €105 million. The retailer cited Tuesday in a statement "inflationary pressures and pressures on purchasing power" that continued in the second quarter of 2022 and said that its capital expenditure excluding external growth would therefore be lower than expected, at 3.5% of sales against 5% previously.
The group, which previously closed its annual financial year on September 30, will now do so on June 30 "for the sake of harmonization and integration" with InVivo's results. At the beginning of the day Tuesday the Teract share remained stable, at 5.68 euros. In the "coming months", Teract intends to "continue its efforts on costs, the integration of companies" and the "rebalancing of the seasonality of its model", the period from April to June being dominant in the garden center. This group is the result of the merger between the distribution activity of the union of agricultural cooperatives InVivo and a financial investment vehicle launched by businessmen Xavier Niel, Matthieu Pigasse and Moez-Alexandre Zouari, a major franchisee of the Casino group.
Teract also announced on Tuesday that it will make "public the status of its discussions with the Casino group on the proposed partnership" at the end of the period of exclusive discussions, that is to say on Thursday evening, June 8. Teract has been negotiating for several months to integrate the French activity of the distributor in great difficulty because of the weight of its debt. But another offer, made by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, Casino's second-largest shareholder, has since emerged. Casino formalized Friday its entry into a conciliation procedure for a period of four months to renegotiate its large debt.
