In insolvency, the Caddy company, whose name has become synonymous with the supermarket trolley, was placed in receivership with seven weeks to find a buyer and save its 140 jobs.
“The court puts the company in receivership (…) and it returns the case to February 22, hoping to have a solution by this date with a buyer for the company Caddie”, indicated the president of the company Stéphane Dedieu , at the end of the closed hearing which was held before the commercial chamber of the judicial court of Saverne (Bas-Rhin).
“We’re pressed for time because the company needs cash to keep going, so it’s important that the process be quick,” added the man who, who joined Caddy in the early 1990s as a salesperson, took over the business. company in 2014 following a previous receivership.
“Currently I have no lead, but the procedure is just starting”, recognized Stéphane Dedieu, calling for an “industrial” buyer for this niche market and praising “a beautiful brand, beautiful products and employees. involved “.
– Retention of employment –
For his part, reassured that the wages for December will finally be paid, Luc Strohmenger, CFTC secretary of the Social and Economic Committee (CSE), wants priority to be given to “maintaining employment” on the now only production site in Dettwiller (Bas-Rhin).
“The objective is to find a buyer as quickly as possible because the state of the company is really catastrophic. The objective is to maintain employment as long as possible”, insisted the lawyer of the CSE, Me Hervé. Bertrand, citing seven million euros in debt just from suppliers. “We hope that it will not be too short and that the employees will not experience another disappointment,” he added.
The company declared itself insolvent on Monday due to an accumulation of difficulties which have exhausted its cash flow.
“It all started more or less at the time of the Covid, we had a sharp drop in turnover, then we had a lot of negative situations related to the Covid, in particular supply difficulties, production stoppages, increase in costs of materials which have been multiplied by two or by three “, explained Mr. Dedieu.
“We have orders, that’s the paradox, it’s a lack of cash that forces us to go through the court box”, he added, referring to an order book of 6.8 million. euros corresponding to several months of production.
The CFTC and CFDT unions have instead considered that there had been a “risky management” of the state support funds paid during the pandemic, which should have made it possible to keep the company afloat, which disputes the president of the company, whose full name is “Les Ateliers reunis Caddie”.
– Polish shareholder in difficulty –
Name registered in 1959, Caddy, whose industrial and Alsatian origins date back to 1928, has become a common name with the rise of the consumer society, inseparable from the metal cart for supermarkets.
“Of course, it will no longer be a product of the future as in the 1970s, but the renewal of trolleys is now faster, on average five years and store openings, in India or the Middle East for example” remain an important source of orders, detailed Mr. Dedieu.
Since 2018, the company has been 70% owned by the Polish Damix, which has moved the manufacture of airport trolleys to Poland. “He has invested a lot in Caddy, but he himself suffered from the Covid and is no longer able to continue to support his French subsidiary”, according to Stéphane Dedieu.
While the company still employed 700 people just in France at the start of the 2000s, Caddie had cut several dozen jobs in 2020, reducing its workforce to 140, and grouped its production activities of trolleys for mass distribution on the one Dettwiller site where, on Tuesday, the production lines were still operating.
