An executive with a penchant for complex financial engineering, 74-year-old Mr Naouri constructed a web of holding companies through which he controls Casino. However, he overburdened them with debt and was subsequently forced to place four of the holdings that sit atop Casino — Rallye, Euris, Finatis, and Foncière Euris — into the French equivalent of bankruptcy protection in 2019.
In addition to the long-running prosecutor’s probe, two minority shareholders in Casino — Xavier Kemlin, a descendant of the company’s founder, and Pierre-Henri Leroy, founder of proxy advisory Proxinvest — filed additional legal complaints against the company in February. Casino’s financial results published on Friday showed a net loss of €316 million for 2022, an improvement on the year before, but total debt rose to €6.4 billion — up 8 per cent year on year.