2023-12-28 14:19:22
A sixty-year-old company with 400 employees on the job between Christmas and New Year’s Day. This is the terrible fate of the Habitat furniture brand whose judicial liquidation was recorded this Thursday morning by the Bobigny commercial court (Seine-Saint-Denis), confirms AFP.
An express descent into hell since the group’s management had requested its placement in receivership barely a month ago, on November 30. In cessation of payments, the company, which has 25 stores in France, then explained that it wanted to stabilize the financial situation and initiate a recovery plan with the “main objective of ensuring the payment of all suppliers and the delivery of orders to customers” .
But the judicial administrators of the company taken over in 2020 by investor Thierry Le Guénic quickly realized that the situation was much more complicated. Faced with particularly deteriorated accounts, they finally requested the judicial liquidation of the group barely ten days after the placement in receivership. In a letter sent Wednesday evening, Thierry Le Guénic admits not having “succeeded in meeting this challenge, just like the previous shareholders”. Today, “another phase is opening, and we are now committed to helping find any reclassification solution for our employees,” adds the businessman.
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A platform for reporting receivables
According to initial estimates, nearly 9 million euros in orders were paid to the company without them being honored. With compulsory liquidation, these aggrieved customers have very little chance of seeing their money or the furniture ordered again since they are unsecured creditors. That is to say, they come after employees, Urssaf, taxes, suppliers, etc. They are still invited to declare themselves directly on the platform set up by the judicial administrators. habitat.procedurecollective.com. A declaration to which they must attach any document justifying the existence and amount of the debt: copy of invoice, purchase order or delivery.
The anger of customers, some of whom placed orders only a few weeks ago, had also encouraged employees to exercise their right of withdrawal in mid-December and the 25 stores had lowered the curtain. Definitely then. Some 400 employees, whose salaries for November and December are covered by the AGS, the salary guarantee scheme, due to lack of cash, also lose their jobs. They can also make themselves known on the habitat.procedurecollective.com platform. to find out more about their rights in the procedure. It now remains to be seen whether a potential buyer could come forward to, at least, save the Habitat brand.
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