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La Lettre — 31 mars 2026 | Résumé bilingue

🇫🇷 FRANÇAIS

[Grande Distribution] Casino : le putsch avorté d'Attestor et Monarch Les fonds créanciers Attestor et Monarch, qui détiennent ensemble ~40 % de la dette de Casino (1,4 Md€ en renégociation), ont tenté de forcer la main à Daniel Kretinsky en démarchant Carrefour, Intermarché, Coopérative U et Lidl pour leur proposer de racheter le groupe s'ils venaient à en prendre le contrôle. L'opération, menée avec l'aide d'Evercore (Andrea Bozzi), a fait un flop. Carrefour — première cible — a refusé, Alexandre Bompard ne souhaitant pas s'aliéner Bercy ni risquer un conflit frontal avec Kretinsky. Les autres enseignes ont également décliné, préférant attendre que Kretinsky assainisse lui-même le groupe. Un nouveau geste de compromis de Kretinsky vers ses créanciers est attendu ce mardi.

[Politique/Industrie] Electrifab : nouveau centre d'expertise pour l'électrification industrielle EDF, Engie, TotalEnergies et plusieurs fédérations professionnelles lancent Electrifab, présenté au salon Global Industrie à Villepinte. Piloté par l'ATEE (Nicolas Fondraz), l'outil vise à accompagner les industriels sur les plans technique et financier. Bercy surveille de près ce projet, qu'il souhaite complémentaire — et non concurrent — à sa plateforme "Je décarbone".

[Parlement européen] Accélérateur industriel de Séjourné : désignation des rapporteurs À l'approche des négociations sur l'IAA (Industrial Acceleration Act), les groupes politiques du Parlement européen désignent leurs rapporteurs fictifs au sein de la commission ITRE. Le PPE a choisi l'Espagnol Raúl de la Hoz Quintano ; les CRE misent sur le Polonais Daniel Obajtek et l'Italien Paolo Borchia (PfE/Bardella) ; les Verts désignent la Belge Sara Matthieu ; S&D devrait nommer Giorgio Gori. Les commissions IMCO et INTA cherchent également à s'associer au texte.

[Lobbying] Loi Sapin II : enquête Ifop sur le regard des lobbyistes À l'occasion des dix ans de la loi Sapin II, l'APAP et l'AFCL commandent à l'Ifop une étude d'opinion auprès des inscrits au registre de la HATVP sur l'usage et l'efficacité du dispositif de transparence. Les pistes de réforme sondées incluent la publication des notes de position, le sourcing des amendements et la transparence des agendas.

[Télécoms] Orange sous pression sur son plan d'actions gratuites pour 1 200 dirigeants Orange soumet à son AG du 19 mai un LTIP triennal 2026-2028 portant sur 0,45 % du capital (~45 M€), soit une moyenne de 37 500 €/leader. Les syndicats (CFE-CGC, CFDT, CGT) et l'AASGO (8 % du capital) contestent la formulation et réclament un retour à l'annualisation. Christel Heydemann, DG, bénéficierait jusqu'à 120 000 actions gratuites sur la période. Le conseil d'administration tranche ce mercredi 1er avril.

[Médias] Challenges : Augustin de Romanet au comité éditorial L'ex-PDG d'ADP et président de Paris Europlace, Augustin de Romanet, rejoint le comité éditorial de Challenges (détenu par LVMH), en remplacement d'Éric Fottorino. Le comité, qui désigne le directeur de la rédaction, pourrait jouer un rôle clé dans les prochaines semaines : Pierre-Henri de Menthon, directeur de la rédaction, envisage d'activer sa clause de cession (deadline : 30 avril). En interne, Thiébault Dromard, rédacteur en chef "entreprises" depuis 2008, se profile comme successeur potentiel.

🇬🇧 ENGLISH

[Retail] Casino: Attestor and Monarch's failed creditor coup Anglo-Saxon credit funds Attestor and Monarch, holding roughly 40% of Casino's €1.4bn debt under renegotiation, attempted to outmanoeuvre majority shareholder Daniel Kretinsky by quietly sounding out rival retailers — Carrefour first and foremost, as well as Intermarché, Coopérative U and Lidl — on buying Casino outright should the funds seize control. The operation, run with Evercore's Andrea Bozzi, fell flat. Carrefour's CEO Alexandre Bompard declined to risk a frontal clash with Kretinsky or antagonise Bercy by teaming up with foreign debt funds. Other chains likewise held back, preferring to wait for Kretinsky's team to complete its own restructuring. A new concession from Kretinsky toward creditors is expected today (Tuesday).

[Politics/Industry] Electrifab: new industrial electrification centre launched EDF, Engie, TotalEnergies and several industry federations are launching Electrifab, unveiled at the Global Industrie trade show in Villepinte. Led by the ATEE (Nicolas Fondraz), the initiative aims to provide technical and financial support to industrial companies on electrification. France's economy ministry is watching closely, hoping the body will complement — rather than compete with — its own "Je décarbone" platform.

[European Parliament] Séjourné's Industrial Accelerator: rapporteurs take shape As negotiations on the Industrial Acceleration Act (IAA) approach, EP political groups are nominating shadow rapporteurs in the influential ITRE committee. The EPP has picked Spain's Raúl de la Hoz Quintano; the ECR is backing Poland's Daniel Obajtek alongside Italy's Paolo Borchia (PfE/Bardella); the Greens have named Belgium's Sara Matthieu; and S&D is expected to appoint Giorgio Gori. The IMCO and INTA committees are also jockeying for associated status.

[Lobbying] Sapin II anniversary: lobbyists surveyed on transparency register On the tenth anniversary of the Sapin II law, the APAP and AFCL have commissioned an Ifop survey targeting HATVP-registered lobbyists to assess how the transparency framework is used and perceived. Reform options under consideration include mandatory publication of position papers, disclosure of amendment sourcing, and calendar transparency.

[Telecoms] Orange faces pushback on free share plan for 1,200 senior managers Orange is putting a three-year LTIP (2026–2028) covering 0.45% of capital (~€45m, averaging €37,500 per "leader") to shareholders at its May 19 AGM. Unions and AASGO (holding 8% of capital) are contesting the terms and pressing for a return to annual plans. CEO Christel Heydemann would receive up to 120,000 free shares under the scheme. The board meets this Wednesday to decide whether to revise the resolution.

[Media] Challenges: Augustin de Romanet joins editorial committee Former ADP CEO and current Paris Europlace chairman Augustin de Romanet is set to join the editorial committee of Challenges (owned by LVMH), filling the seat vacated by Éric Fottorino. The committee's role in appointing the editor-in-chief could prove decisive in coming weeks: incumbent editor Pierre-Henri de Menthon has reportedly assessed his chances of triggering his "cession clause" at better than evens (deadline: 30 April). Internally, Thiébault Dromard, head of the business desk since 2008, is emerging as a potential successor.

Morgan Stanley wealth manager approached BlackRock about multimillion-dollar investment for US defence secretary

A broker for Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, attempted to make a big investment in major defence companies in the weeks leading up to the US-Israeli attack on Iran, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Hegseth’s broker at Morgan Stanley contacted BlackRock in February about making a multimillion-dollar investment in the asset manager’s Defense Industrials Active ETF, the people said, shortly before the US launched military action against Tehran.

The inquiry on behalf of the high-profile potential client was flagged internally at BlackRock, according to the people familiar with the matter.

According to BlackRock, the $3.2bn equity fund, which carries the ticker IDEF, pursues “growth opportunities by investing in companies that may benefit from increased government spending on defense and security amid geopolitical fragmentation and economic competition”.

Its largest holdings include defence conglomerates RTX, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, which count the US Department of Defense as their biggest customers, as well as data integration specialist Palantir.

Following publication of the FT’s report, Sean Parnell, chief Pentagon spokesperson, wrote on social media site X: “This allegation is entirely false and fabricated. Neither Secretary Hegseth nor any of his representatives approached BlackRock about any such investment.”

BlackRock and Morgan Stanley declined to comment.

Hegseth is among the chief architects of the war in Iran, and also served as one of the Trump administration’s most vocal advocates for the attack on the Islamic republic, often flaunting the US’s military might.

The investment discussed by Hegseth’s broker did not ultimately go ahead as the fund, which launched in May last year, was not yet available for Morgan Stanley clients to buy. Although ETFs are designed to be bought and sold as easily as a stock, their proliferation has meant that most big brokerage and trading platforms only carry a subset of the over 14,000 ETFs in existence.

It is not known whether Hegseth’s broker subsequently found an alternative defence-focused fund to make the investment. ETFs are popular with individual investors because they tend to offer lower fees and more favourable tax treatment than mutual funds as well as being able to buy and sell in and out of them more quickly.

The Nasdaq-listed IDEF fund has risen 28 per cent over the past year, but has not risen on the Middle East war, falling almost 13 per cent in the past month.

While the aborted nature of the approach to BlackRock may have avoided short-term losses, the fact that Hegseth’s broker was prepared to make such an investment when the defence secretary’s own department was preparing to launch a large-scale military campaign is likely to stir controversy.

The discussions about the defence investment come at a time when Wall Street analysts have been scrutinising trades made in financial and prediction markets ahead of decisions the Trump administration takes.

Hegseth has been a champion of the US campaign against Iran, with President Donald Trump identifying the former Fox News television personality as the first in his national security circle to push for war.

While at Fox News, Hegseth earned $4.6mn in salary from 2022 to 2024, according to a disclosure form submitted for his Senate confirmation. He also made nearly $500,000 from two book advances in those years, and $100,001 to $1mn in royalties for each. He also earned almost $900,000 in speaking fees.

His most recent financial disclosure, released in June 2025, showed the defence secretary sold stock in 29 different companies, with values ranging from $1,001 to $50,000 each.

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International official holdings at New York Federal Reserve fall to lowest level since 2012

Foreign central banks have slashed their holdings of Treasuries at the New York Federal Reserve to the lowest level since 2012, as countries sell the US government bonds to prop up their economies and currencies in the wake of the Iran war.

The value of Treasuries held in custody at the New York Fed by official institutions — a group that is largely made up of central banks but also includes governments and international institutions — has dropped by $82bn since February 25 to $2.7tn, according to Fed data.

The decline in these holdings since the war began a month ago highlights how the surge in energy prices triggered by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway, has upended the finances of countries that rely on oil imports, as well as boosting the dollar across the board.

It also comes at a time when some central banks have intervened in foreign exchange markets to prop up their currencies, a move that typically involves selling US dollars.

“The foreign official sector is selling Treasuries,” said Meghan Swiber, a US rates strategist at Bank of America.

Brad Setser, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who studies foreign holdings of Treasuries, said oil importers such as Turkey, India and Thailand are probably among those selling Treasuries as they pay higher prices for oil, which is denominated in dollars.

Turkey’s central bank has sold $22bn of foreign government securities from its foreign currency reserves since February 27, the day before the attacks on Iran were launched, according to official data. Setser said a significant portion of these securities were likely to be Treasuries.

Separate data from Thai and Indian central banks show that foreign exchange reserves have been sold since the start of the war in Iran, though whether that represents sales of Treasuries or of dollar deposits is unclear. 

“A number of countries . . . don’t want their currencies to weaken further because it pushes up the local currency price of oil — and either means more fiscal subsidies or more pain for households. Hence the widespread decision to intervene in the currency market to try to limit depreciation and higher local currency oil prices,” Setser said.

Swiber at BofA noted that Middle Eastern oil-exporting countries could also be selling those assets to make up for oil revenue, though they represent a small portion of overall Treasury holders.

Treasuries are relied upon by global central banks as the pre-eminent reserve asset, since the $30tn market for the securities is the biggest and deepest in the world.

Foreign central banks are selling US bonds at a time when the Treasury market is already under pressure as traders worry that the Middle East conflict could drive up inflation. That has pushed yields on both two- and 10-year Treasuries up this month by the most since 2024, increasing borrowing costs for the government as well as businesses and households.

Some investors said foreign central banks’ Treasuries holdings often drift lower as the dollar strengthens — as they seek to rebalance their assets and defend their currencies — but others said the data could be a sign holders are drawing on funds amid the market volatility.

The data suggested foreign official holders could be “stocking the war chest” by cashing out Treasuries, according to Stephen Jones, chief investment officer at Aegon Asset Management.

“They are pulling in rainy-day money.”

Analysts also noted that some Treasury holdings might have been moved to other custodians besides the New York Fed, rather than having been sold outright. But the sales recorded in the Fed data were still notable, particularly since the Treasury market had roughly tripled in size since 2012, when the Fed last recorded this level of selling, Swiber said.

Foreign official holdings of Treasuries held at the Fed have declined in recent years, as managers of foreign currency reserves have diversified away from dollars. That has made foreign private investors an increasingly important part of the market.

The recent selling “speaks to the larger story which is that foreign reserve managers and official accounts are diversifying away from Treasuries”, Swiber said.