Type
Merger/Acquisition
Country
France
Region
Location of affected unit(s)
Sector
Retail
Retail Trade, Except Of Motor Vehicles And Motorcycles
Retail Sale Of Other Household Equipment In Specialised Stores
47.51 - Retail sale of textiles in specialised stores

441 jobs
Number of planned job losses
Job loss
Announcement Date
17 August 2020
Employment effect (start)
1 September 2020
Foreseen end date
31 December 2020

Description

The Commercial Court of Lille has decided to attribute the Camaïeu textile retailer to the investment fund Financière immobilière bordelaise (FIB). The  FIB's offer allows to take over 80% of the workforce,that is 2,659 jobs (out of 3,100 employees) and 511 shops out of 634. A total of 441 employees will be made redundant. The takeover bid was supported by the Social and Economic Committee (CSE) and the CFDT-CGT-FO inter-union. The staff representatives, with the exception of the in-house union (38% of the votes in the last workplace elections) rejected the takeover offer presented by the current CEO.

The difficulties of Camaïeu, which was placed in receivership on 26 May, go back much further than the COVID-19 crisis alone. With a debt of €1 billion, the company saw its creditors increase their capital in 2016. Half of this debt was then converted into capital. In 2018, at the end of a long dispute, it was finally the creditors who won, after a safeguard procedure, against the historical shareholders. The teams set up since then have made it a priority to develop online sales, renovate the network and review the offer.

The investment fund specialising in commercial real estate of FIB, has decided to keep the logistics contract with the service provider Dispéo, and the headquarters in Roubaix (Nord). 


Sources

Citation

Eurofound (2020), Camaïeu International, Merger/Acquisition in France, factsheet number 101518, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/101518.