The black series continues for fashion brands. The French chain Burton of London will close 26 of its 109 points of sale in France on Saturday, as part of a job protection plan, according to concordant sources quoted by AFP. The group, bought for a symbolic euro at the end of 2020 by the entrepreneur Thierry Le Guénic, had been placed in the safeguard procedure last October.
26 stores will therefore close tomorrow, including those in Aix-en-Provence, Clermont-Ferrand, La Roche-sur-Yon, Créteil, Montauban and even Paris Montparnasse, according to Anne-Marie Da Costa, CFTC union representative, who specifies that “three stores have already been closed”. The union, the majority at Burton, specifies that according to the job protection plan – approved a few days ago with the Drieets (Regional Directorate for the Economy, Employment, Labor and Solidarity) – ” 221 employees out of 441 will be laid off”, “62 stores will be closed or sold, and only 47 will remain open”.
“Stores that have not been profitable for ten years”
The CFTC denounces in a press release “a real social disaster, especially since the job protection plan provides for very weak or even deplorable social measures, while the manager owns several companies with colossal means”. For his part, Thierry Le Guenic, majority shareholder, indicated that the company had “been saved in order to create a new project for Burton, which involves the fact that we must make the company profitable”. “The 26 stores that close to the public on Saturday are stores that have not been profitable for ten years, we cannot keep them,” he explained. The figure of 221 layoffs for 441 employees “it’s the maximum of the maximum, but I think we will be closer to 110 or 120” thanks to the sale of stores, “for me the priority is to sell them with the recovery of staff “, he said.
Regarding the 47 points of sale that the group does not close or does not seek to sell, the women’s collections will disappear to “refocus on men” and the points of sale “will welcome other brands” than Burton of London . In 2020, Thierry Le Guénic also bought the furniture brand Habitat from the Cafom group as well as, with the investor Stéphane Collaert, the shoemaker San Marina, placed in compulsory liquidation on Monday.
