By
AFP
Translated by
Erin Floyd
Published
May 20, 2019
Reading time
2 minutes
Download
Download the article
Print
Text size

New Look France: New deadline to find a buyer set for June 7

By
AFP
Translated by
Erin Floyd
Published
May 20, 2019

The Paris commercial court has extended until June 7 the time allowed for the search of a possible takeover candidate for the stores of British group New Look's French subsidiary, which is currently in receivership, according to New Look France's management and the trade unions.


DR


On Monday, the court showed only two written propositions for a single store, the Saint-Antoine New Look in Paris, from a pharmacy manager and a textile maker. The two propositions offered to take over three and five out of the 10 employees from the shop, which is "almost nothing, on the group scale," according to staff representative Sud Moussa, contacted by AFP.

New Look France employs 400 people, 350 of whom on a permanent contract, according to the subsidiary's HR director Patrick Birault. Some 30 employees gathered on Monday morning to state their concerns before the commercial court in Paris. "It's hard to believe that a solution can be found between now and June 7," Moussa Keita said.

The struggling value fashion group  launched a restructuring plan last September that included store closures and redundancies in France. The project was abandoned with the arrival in November of new managers. At the end of February, the new management announced that it was looking for potential buyers for all of the group's French business. The brand was put into receivership on March 25 by Paris' commercial court.

"The managers want to put their consciences at ease by showing willingness to preserve employment, but there is no chance," commented Keita, who hopes to bring an action for damages against the brand's British parent company.

The British group has already closed all its stores in China and Belgium. A year ago, it announced the closure of 60 stores and the elimination of 980 jobs in the UKi, but has just restructured its debt to give itself some breathing room.
 

Copyright © 2024 AFP. All rights reserved. All information displayed in this section (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the contents of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presses.