La Halle, Conforama, Orchestra, Un jour autre, Camaïeu, André, Maxitoys, Alinea, Keria Luminaires, PikWik, André, Celio… The list of brands for sale, in receivership or in safeguard proceedings is growing day by day . Nationally, tens of thousands of salespersons, scattered across hundreds of stores, are at risk of losing their jobs in the coming weeks.
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“1300 jobs at Orchestra, 450 at André, 3000 at the Halle, 3600 at Camaïeu, 9000 at Conforama, 2000 for Alinéa, 760 at Maxitoys, 44 at PicWik…” Sign after sign, Elodie Ferrier, CGT Commerce delegate, adds up the positions that should go by the wayside. With these few chains alone, the addition already amounts to more than 20,000 jobs threatened at the national level, not to mention the other names added to the list in recent days. “Every time my phone rings, I am told a backup or recovery”, sighs the union representative. The latest, Celio, who announced this Monday morning to have requested a safeguard procedure. “The brutal closure for two months of its 1,585 stores around the world resulted in a loss of turnover for the group of nearly 100 million euros between March and May 2020. To date, nearly 300 stores are still closed in countries still affected by Covid-19 ”, motivates the company.
“A lot of brands were already not doing very well. The confinement linked to the health crisis only accelerates the process. New brands have entered the market, with renewed collections and a very offensive approach on social networks. Certain networks have not succeeded in repositioning themselves or developing their offer, and sometimes collect store concepts that are insufficiently differentiated. There was also a race for openness on the part of the chains bought by pension funds, thus increasing the debt. The problem is that as soon as something goes off the rails, everything explodes ”, comments Anick Lorente, commercial real estate consultant.
“The problem for several brands is their LBO (Leverage buy out)”, details Eric Scherrer, Seci-Unsa delegate. This financial package makes it possible to buy a company without having the funds to do so, by passing a holding company which carries the debt and repays it with the profits of the company. “As long as the profits are greater than the reimbursement, all is well. The day when, even beneficiary, the company no longer allows to repay the installments, nothing works. This system of redemption by making cavalry is unhealthy from the start ”, considers the union representative for whom the ready-to-wear signs are not sufficiently prepared financially to cash in on yield reductions. Added to this is competition from new brands at floor prices.
In detail, the situations vary from one brand to another. Some are on sale to give ballast to the group that owns them, like La Halle pour Vivarte. The chain, in receivership, should rule on its various offers by the end of the month and will undoubtedly be sold by compartment to about twenty buyers. Also in receivership: Camaïeu, one of the largest ready-to-wear networks in the country with more than 600 stores, but also NafNaf, Orchestra or even Conforama which could end up in the pocket of Goal. Others have placed themselves in the safeguard procedure (at the initiative of the company). This is the case of Celio which indicates that it has requested the protection of the Commercial Court must have found an agreement with its banking partners. Still other groups have decided to downsize, such as PicWik Toys, which has planned to cut a third of its 1,200 jobs and close around 20 stores. Beyond these distinct situations, the stores of the same network do not play in the same court either. Some will be resumed with the same activity, others not. What give rise to a dispersion of individual situations that are hardly visible and all the more fragile.
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