A subsidiary of the TRM group (Transports Rapids du Maine) located in Laval, the Le Havre company Sotecan joined the fold of this large transport organizing group in 2017. Two years later, Jérôme Foubert, the CEO of TRM, and his teams made the choice to relocate this company which employs two export agents, two for import and a commercial in new premises in Grand-Hameau.
Like the rest of the world economy, Sotecan has been hit hard by the health crisis. “ All economic activity has stopped. It was just starting to pick up in China and the rest of Asia that all of Europe was under containment. And, aggravating factor, we had already been very disturbed by several weeks of social conflicts “, summarized Jérôme Foubert for Jean-Baptiste Gastinne and Hubert Dejean de la Batie, both vice-presidents of the Normandy Region. The mayors of Le Havre and Sainte-Adresse were accompanied by their regional councilor colleague Valérie Egloff.
The CEO of the TRM group explained to elected officials yesterday that Sotecan has lost 30% of its turnover since the start of the Covid-19 crisis. “ Our activity is slowly resuming, but in our transport and logistics sectors, everything is delayed by a month “, completes his assistant, Frédy Courilleau. This is confirmed by the director of the Le Havre site, Romain Legros.
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150 000 € of loans
“ We are very happy to have been supported by the Region in this difficult period that we are going through by benefiting from a stimulus stimulus loan of 50 000 €. And our bank, CIC, lent us 100 000 € “, said Jérôme Foubert. The TRM group will begin to repay these loans next year and for a term of five years.
“ Around sixty loans of this type have been granted by the Normandy Region to the tune of almost 5 million euros. For our regional community, this is strategic. The stimulus must be there. But it is not with bankruptcies that the economy is restarted. We are very attentive to the impact on employment in Normandy “, recalled Jean-Baptiste Gastinne.
To finance this exceptional aid to the regional economic fabric weakened by the health crisis, the Region drew from sums provisioned for the purchase of new trains. “ These orders are not canceled. Trains will arrive a little later “, warns the president of Le Havre Seine Métropole.
Romain Legros announced to elected officials yesterday that he hoped to make 80% of his usual turnover for the month of June.
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