The consortium led by energy and media oligarch Daniel Kretinsky’s investment vehicle EP Global Commerce (EPGC) has reached an agreement on a debt restructuring deal with the French retail group Casino.

The agreement in principle should be followed by an agreement to be signed in September and will involve the capital injection of €1.2bn and restructuring of Casino’s debt of €6.4bn. Kretisnky’s consortium will own between 50.4% and 53% of Casino’s shares.

“A concluded agreement will enable the strengthening of the capital structure of Casino and at the same time begin the restructuring of this company,” a spokesperson for Kretinsky’s energy conglomerate EPH, Daniel Castvaj, was quoted as saying by the Czech Press Agency.

EPGC joined forces with Finamalac of French billionaire Marc Ladreit de Lacharriere, formerly a majority owner of the Fitch rating agency, and British fund Attestor.    

The news comes days after rival bidding group 3F Holding, formed by telecommunications billionaire Xavier Neil, investment banker Mathieu Pigasse and French-Tunisian Moez-Alexandre Zourai decided not to submit an offer to the debt-stricken retail chain.     

Casino released a statement saying: “The Agreement in Principle [with EP Global Commerce a.s., Fimalac, Attestor] has been approved by the board of directors, upon unanimous recommendation of the ad hoc committee.”

Reuters noted that Casino’s shares fell 11%, and the shares of  Casino’s CEO Jean-Charles Naouri’s Rallye holding were down 20% as Naouri’s era at Casino came to an end. It also cited analysts arguing that Casino needs more than double the offered capital injection to recover.

“Casino shareholders will be massively diluted, and Rallye will lose control of Casino,” the group stated. In their press release, Kretinsky’s consortium welcomed the agreement.

Kretinsky is the controlling shareholder in EPGC, with 53%, followed by his long-term business partner Patrik Tkac, a privatisation-era Slovak billionaire and a key owner of Slovak Financial group J&T where Kretinsky began his star career. Tkac controls 47% of EPGC.  

The two have embarked on an extraordinary shopping spree in recent years, which involved significant acquisitions in energy, media and retail in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and France.

Boosted by the energy crisis, EPH, where both are also key controlling shareholders, made consolidated sales of €37.1bn and an Ebitda of €4bn with a margin of 11.7% in 2022, the group stated in May. EPH is criticised as one of the largest polluters in Europe.

Separately, the news emerged that Kretinsky is interested in the Daily Telegraph as the newspaper's holding company picked investment banking giant Goldman Sachs to oversee the auction of the newspaper’s published.

On the same day that news of the agreement on Casion emerged, Deutsche Welle reported that Kretinsky is eying the steel unit of Germany’s industrial giant ThyssenKrupp.