Bonds of French retailer Casino Guichard fell by over 5% across the curve after its retail sales grew by only 0.1% in the fourth quarter of 2022. Casino said that a “more difficult competitive environment late in the year” was to blame and that it kept cutting spending on promotions and communication. Casino is currently in talks to combine its French retail operations with Teract SA. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Charles Alle notes that it is “difficult to see how any merger with Teract could, on its own, reverse the poor sales trend”.
