Casino Sell Big C Thailand
Feb 12, 2016 Groupe Casino set to sell Big C Thailand. Feb 12, 2016. French supermarket operator Groupe Casino has said it will now likely sell its Thailand operation. While in the process of searching for a buyer for its Big C chain in Vietnam, Groupe Casino says it has received an approach to purchase its more profitable operation in Thailand. Thailand’s TCC Group has agreed to pay Bt123 billion for France-based the Casino Group’s 59 per cent stake in Big C Supercentre, according to the Wall Street Journal. Casino announces the signing of a contract to sell and procure to sell its stake in Big C Supercenter PCL, listed in Thailand (“Big C”), for € 3.1 billion (excluding debt) to the TCC Group, one of the leading conglomerates in Thailand, with operations in the retail, commercial and industrial business, food and beverage, finance and insurance, property and real estate, agricultural and agro industrial sectors.
Groupe Casino SA has agreed to sell its stake in Thai hypermarket operator Big C Supercenter PLC for EUR3.1 billion ($3.46 billion) to a Thai billionaire, marking a major step in the French grocer's plans to cut its debt.
Thai tycoon Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi's holding company, TCC Group, will buy Casino's 58.6% stake in Big C Thailand for 252.88 baht a share ($7.10), the company said in a statement on Sunday, confirming an earlier report in The Wall Street Journal. At that price, Mr. Charoen's offer values Big C close to $5.86 billion.
The sale is a key step in Casino's attempts to reduce its debt pile. The retailer launched a EUR4 billion deleveraging plan in 2016 which includes selling its stake in the Thai supermarket as well as Vietnam retail assets. Ratings agency Standard & Poor's in January put the French retailer's debt on 'negative watch' for a possible downgrade to junk status, citing concerns over weakness in Brazil and the retailer's debt.
The sale, which is expected to complete by March 31, will allow Casino to reduce its debt level by EUR3.3 billion when Big C's debt is included, the company said in a statement.
Casino makes around 40% of its sales in Latin America, where a prolonged recession in Brazil has led to falling sales and declining profitability. Management remains bullish on Brazil, but the slowdown has made it more difficult for Casino to support the same level of debt.
In December, the grocer revealed plans to sell its Vietnamese retail operation and some of its real estate holdings in Colombia--sales of which are ongoing.
In the process of selling its Vietnam unit, Casino received a number of expressions of interest for its larger Thai unit and decided to sell that asset as well. Thailand's largest retail conglomerate Central Group, which owns about a quarter of Big C Thailand, lost out in the bidding for Casino's stake, people familiar with the process said.
For Mr. Charoen, the deal boosts his retail presence in Thailand. He already owns a listed consumer products company called Berli Jucker PCL, which has interests from trading to packaging and retail. Last month, Mr. Charoen's TCC Group closed a EUR655 million acquisition of Metro Group's cash & carry wholesale business in Vietnam.
In recent years, deal-hungry Thai tycoons like Mr. Charoen, the son of an ethnic Chinese street vendor in Bangkok, have been among the biggest spenders in the region.
Mr. Charoen started a small distillery with partners after dropping out of school and successfully bid for government liquor concessions in Thailand. Since then, he has expanded his business to include wide-ranging interests from real estate to finance and agriculture. He became a household name in 2013 when he bought a controlling stake in Singapore-listed conglomerate Fraser & Neave that valued the firm at $11 billion.
Big C Thailand Online
Casino entered the Thai market in 1999 when it acquired a stake in Big C, before adding rival Carrefour SA's Thai operations in early 2011. Big C is now Thailand's second-largest hypermarket operator after Tesco PLC's Thai unit.
Big C Stores In Thailand
As of September last year, Big C and its subsidiaries operated 697 stores in Thailand. The company posted net profit of $38 million for the third quarter ended in September, down 14.5% over the same period last year.
Write to Nick Kostov at Nick.Kostov@wsj.com and P.R. Venkat at venkat.pr@wsj.com