French retailer Casino has received four preliminary offers of around €1.5 billion each for its renewable energy business GreenYellow, including one from Ardian, a source with knowledge of the matter has said.
Casino, which has embarked on a plan to sell non-core assets to cut debt, said last month that it had launched a process to sell GreenYellow, aiming to seal a potential deal by the end of the year.
The source said investment fund Ardian had made its offer at the end of last week. Ardian declined to comment.
A decision on the deal is expected next month, the source said.
Preliminary Bids For GreenYellow
Last week, two sources said Macquarie, I Squared Capital and Dutch company SHV had made preliminary bids for GreenYellow as of 2 June at around €1.5 billion each, and that other potential bidders had asked for more time to put together a possible offer.
In February, GreenYellow raised additional funds of around €200 million to support its growth. The business raised €109 million via five-year convertible bonds with warrants attached subscribed by a US institutional investor Farallon Capital, and further €87 million through a one-year syndicated credit facility.
In April of this year, the French retailer said that same-store sales across its network were up 3.2% in the first quarter of its financial year, an improvement on the 0.4% decline it reported in the final quarter of last year.
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