Six months probation. The Bordeaux Commercial Court on Wednesday placed the Galeries Lafayette department stores owned by Michel Ohayon in safeguard proceedings, while pronouncing a salvo of legal redress for other companies of the businessman.
The safeguard procedure concerns SAS Hermione Retail, Hermione TPR and Hermione Outlet, which include 25 stores and one outlet under the Galeries Lafayette brand in France, totaling 1,109 employees.
Michel Ohayon bought twenty-two stores in 2018, located in 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 and Toulon, then three more in 2021 in Pau, Tours and Rosny-sous-Bois. The outlet is located in a shopping center near Calais.
Right to alert for employees
The employees of these stores were worried about their future since the liquidation of Camaïeu and the receivership of Go Sport, two brands also owned by the businessman.
Staff representatives had exercised their right to alert at the end of December and the CFDT had called for a walkout last week. “This decision is good news for the employees of the company, for its economic partners and for the municipalities where the stores are located”, commented in a press release the Financière immobilière bordelaise (FIB), holding company of Michel’s assets. Ohayon.
“It will allow the company’s managers to develop and deploy a safeguard plan which will make it possible to maintain activity, preserve jobs and settle liabilities, this under the protection of the court”, added the society. A six-month observation period was set.
“It remains to be seen how this will end, between receivership, liquidation or, what we hope, continuation or transfer plan”, declared at the end of the hearing Me Stéphane Kadri, who represents the employees of the stores concerned.
According to him, the situation – which Michel Ohayon generally describes as “healthy” – actually varies a lot from one store to another and potential buyers should not be rushing. Assignments “are not planned to date,” said Baptiste De Fresse de Monval, one of Michel Ohayon’s lawyers.