Bordeaux businessman Michel Ohayon is going to place the 26 Galeries Lafayette stores he controls in France in receivership “to protect them from any attack”, he announced in an interview with journal Sud Ouest.
“Their situation is healthy”, added the entrepreneur whose business empire is in turmoil, with the liquidation of the Camaieu brand and the placement in receivership of the Go Sport group.
In Belfort, the CFDT had called on the employees of Galeries Lafayette to gather in front of the store to demonstrate for the preservation of jobs, as related our colleagues from the Republican East. Similar walkouts had been observed by employees among the twenty or so Galeries Lafayette department stores, which employ around 750 people.
Several signs in the blur
The businessman’s empire has already been shaken by the liquidation of the Camaieu brand and the placement in receivership of the Go Sport group. Michel Ohayon, via the company Hermione People and Brands, had bought around twenty Galeries Lafayette stores but also Camaieu, Go Sport, La Grande Récré and Café Legal.
The Galeries Lafayette stores concerned:
Agen, Amiens, Angoulême, Bayonne, Beauvais, Belfort, Besançon, Caen, Cannes, Chalon-sur-Saône, Chambéry, Dax, La Roche-sur-Yon, La Rochelle, Libourne, Lorient, Montauban, Niort, Rouen, Saintes, Tarbes, Toulon, Tours, Pau, Rosny and the Outlet of Coquelles
Created in 1996, the Financière immobilière bordelaise (FIB), parent company of Go Sport and main holding company of the businessman, was also placed in receivership. A receiver and a receiver have been appointed for a six-month observation period.
Camaieu was liquidated in September, leaving more than 2,000 employees on the floor, and Go Sport has just been placed in receivership, while the elected staff of Galeries Lafayette and Gap, worried about the financial situation of their house mother, have exercised their right to alert.
“Since the failure (of his recovery of Camaieu in 2018, editor’s note), I have heard everything about me but no, I am not a jackal of the commercial courts! “Says the businessman, claiming to have injected “2.5 times more” money into the company than promised, and “tried everything to save jobs”.
The placement in receivership of the FIB must make it possible “to continue the activity” and “to prepare the best conditions for the reimbursement of creditors and companies”, continued Mr. Ohayon, whose strategy aims to “reduce the scope of the company”. , by selling assets, to allow “a very strong deleveraging”. “FIB is solid, we have assets that are among the most beautiful in France,” he said.
Asked about the future of Go Sport, Michel Ohayon, on the other hand, was pessimistic about the outcome of the receivership proceedings opened. by the Commercial Court of Grenobleconsidering that the sign would be “sold before”.
“While the company was going to make its first profits in 17 years in 2023, the employees did not trust the managers and asked that the company be placed under court protection”, lamented the businessman for who this “will cause social damage and lead to the same Gap movement” while “a backup would have been enough. »
