Troubled French retailer Casino on Wednesday forecast a net loss of 5.66 billion euros in 2023, compared with a loss of 316 million euros in 2022, due to disposals and financial restructuring.

On Monday, the Paris Commercial Court gave the green light to Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky's plan to bail out the French retailer under an accelerated safeguard procedure, a move that will end Jean-Charles Naouri's thirty-year reign over the company.

France's seventh-largest supermarket group in terms of market share has endured an extremely difficult 2023, during which it found itself on the verge of insolvency after years of debt-financed acquisitions and recent market share losses to rivals.

Casino said in a statement that in view of the process of selling the group's super and hypermarkets to Auchan Retail and Groupement Les Mousquetaires, parent company of Intermarché, the Ebitda projections for France for the period 2023-2028 published in November 2023 had lapsed.

The Group is not publishing a new 2024 outlook, it explains, due to the forthcoming change of control, which will see the arrival of a new management team led by Daniel Kretinsky.

The Saint-Etienne-based group's net financial debt stood at 6.2 billion euros at December 31, 2023, compared with 4.5 billion one year ago, he added. (Written by Diana Mandiá, edited by Kate Entringer)