The decision of the Grenoble Commercial Court was expected on Wednesday. The body decided to place the 20 franchise stores of the Gap France brand in receivership, as requested by the prosecution. The brand is owned by Bordeaux businessman Michel Ohayon, who also owns Camaïeu and Go Sport.
The court’s decision was taken “at the request of its leader Patrick Puy and in accordance with the requisitions of the prosecution”, said deputy prosecutor François Touret de Coucy in a press release.
The court “appointed the same agents and judicial administrators” as for the Go Sport companies, which hold Gap France, “for the sake of economic consistency”. The prosecution specifies that the wage guarantee scheme “will ensure the payment of wages”.
The elected staff of the ready-to-wear brand had exercised their right to alert at the end of January in order to obtain information on the situation of their company, bought in 2021 for one euro by the HPB group (Hermione, People & Brands), who announced that they would resell it to Go Sport.
Michel Ohayon in turmoil
Last week, Gap France announced that it was “temporarily forced to stop e-commerce orders”. The CFDT added that one of the brand’s Parisian stores, located on avenue des Ternes in the 17th arrondissement of Paris, would close by the end of March.
Bordeaux businessman Michel Ohayon, who made his fortune in real estate before buying retail chains such as Camaïeu, Go Sport, Gap France as well as around twenty Galeries Lafayette stores outside Paris, is in turmoil since weeks. Camaïeu was brutally liquidated in September, leaving 2,600 employees out of business. And the Grenoble commercial court placed Go Sport France in receivership in early February.
HPB, the distribution branch of the Financière immobilière bordelaise (FIB), an investment fund of Michel Ohayon, announced on January 12 “the acquisition of Gap France by Go Sport” for an amount of 38 million.
This operation and the “lack of transparency” on the part of management worried the 350 employees of Gap France, while Groupe Go Sport, the holding company of the brand specializing in sport, was declared in mid-January in receivership by the Commercial Court of Grenoble.