The twenty or so Galeries Lafayette department stores controlled by Michel Ohayon in France will be placed under the safeguard of the commercial court, and not placed in receivership, a spokesperson for the businessman corrected on Saturday.
In an interview published Friday evening by the newspaper Sud Ouest, the latter indicated that he was going to “place Galeries Lafayette in receivership to protect them from any attack”, while adding that their situation was “healthy”.
“There was an error (…). There is no placement in receivership because was filed yesterday morning (Friday, editor’s note) a request for placement in safeguard procedure with the Commercial Court of Bordeaux . There is no cessation of payment,” a spokesperson for Michel Ohayon told AFP.
The Bordeaux businessman owns, through the company Hermione Retail, around twenty Galeries Lafayette department stores acquired from the group in 2018. They employ some 750 people in total in cities such as Bayonne, Cannes, Niort or Rouen.
While other brands controlled by Michel Ohayon are in turmoil, the elected staff of the Galleries had exercised their right to alert in December and walkouts took place this week in stores.
The brutal liquidation of Camaieu in September in the North has already left some 2,600 employees on the floor and the Grenoble commercial court placed in receivership, in January, another sign controlled by Michel Ohayon, Go Sport, which employs more than 2,000 people.
The latter appealed the decision but he believes that Go Sport will be “sold before” the outcome of the procedure, dragging the Gap brand in its wake and with “social damage”.
This week, the Bordeaux Commercial Court also placed the Financière immobilière bordelaise (FIB), Michel Ohayon’s holding company, with which he built his commercial and real estate empire, which also includes several hotel palaces, in receivership.
In his interview with Sud Ouest, the businessman affirms that the FIB has only been placed “under the protection of the court” but the documents registered at the registry clearly show a receivership pronounced on Wednesday, with a suspension of payments to February 7.
Several subsidiaries of the FIB have also been placed in receivership for fault, in particular, of having reimbursed 200 million euros of loans contracted with the Bank of China.