The great adventure of the Bellman company and its great ambitions have just taken a turn for the worse. The start-up which likes to define itself as a “neo-trustee” promised to dust off a profession which still generates a lot of dissatisfaction and criticism in condominiums. Thanks to three fundraisers that enabled it to collect 17 million euros, the company founded by Arturo Pinto had set itself the objective of combining the best of digital with the classic co-ownership management provided by salaried managers of the company.
In full phase of conquering new customers, the company had not hesitated to make enemies among its fellow trustees with an advertising campaign depicting co-owners having recourse to a traditional trustee in sadomasochistic latex outfits, history to emphasize that you have to like hurting yourself so as not to change provider. A campaign that had earned Bellman to be sued by the Association of Condominium Managers (ANGC).
Dismissal of managers
We have to believe that the mission that Bellman gave himself turned out to be more difficult than expected because the company has just launched a job protection plan. The current situation with the rapid rise in interest rates and therefore in the cost of money is hardly favorable to fundraising. And companies that do not cover their costs and have too little cash are finding themselves in trouble. Bellman plans in particular to separate from some of its accountants and also from all of its co-ownership managers, this last mission now to be entrusted to external service providers.
Very present in the media in recent months, the company has been more discreet in commenting on its difficulties. Despite several reminders, its manager preferred to remain silent, his press service contenting himself with an email of a few paragraphs emphasizing in particular that: “The particularly difficult economic situation linked to the international context which creates tensions on raw materials, growing inflation and therefore a contraction of our key markets, has a strong impact on the company’s activities and in particular its financing capacities” and confirming the implementation of a job protection plan.
For the competition, there is certainly no question of rejoicing at these disappointments, but those who have been mocked by the start-up take the opportunity to underline the fragility of its model and propose to welcome the managers of co-ownerships who would have lost their job. “It’s a job that requires a lot of human resources, digital is not enough, points out Gilles Frémont, president of the National Association of Condominium Managers. These difficulties remind us that a company must be profitable and cannot rely on fundraising. It must garner mandates, contracts, buildings to manage. For his part, Benjamin Darmouni, deputy president of Unis Grand Paris, recalls in a LinkedIn post: “This profession is built on trust, and brutal disruption, through outrageous denigration alone, does not favor it.”
More disappointments to come?
Some of these professionals do not hesitate to designate another of their pet peeves, the start-up Matera, as a future candidate for serious difficulties. If the latter has also accumulated (big) fundraising (35 million last year and 10 million in 2020), it does not present itself as a trustee, unlike Bellman, but as a platform for helping cooperative trustees, so a tool and a service for union councils.
“What is indisputable is that the market is currently very bad for fundraising, comparable to what it was before the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000, admet Raphaël Di Meglio, PDG de Matera. On the other hand, we cannot put start-ups with very different approaches on the same level. I have been saying for five years that the traditional model with one manager for 50 buildings does not work and is not profitable. The syndic of tomorrow will be cooperative or will not be.” If he admits that his company will not be profitable until 2025, he affirms that his cash flow is in good health and will allow him to hold out until then without worry.
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