In insolvency since December 31, 2021, Les Ateliers Réunis Caddie, manufacturers of the trolleys of the same name, were placed on Tuesday January 4 in receivership for the third time in less than ten years. The current management has until February 22 to find a buyer. “Currently, I have no lead, but the procedure is just starting”, recognized, at the end of the hearing, Stéphane Dedieu, the manager of the company calling for a buyer “Industrial” for this niche market and boasting “A great brand, great products and involved employees”.
Passed, in regarding fifteen years, from 750 to 142 employees, the almost century-old Alsatian company is now only a shadow of itself, with a turnover divided by ten in a little more than ‘a decade (110 million euros in 2009, 12 million in 2021). Residential buildings are now growing on its historic sites, in particular in Schiltigheim, on the outskirts of Strasbourg. A sign of the times, his former boss (until the sale of the company to the Altia group in 2012) and adopted daughter of the founder, Alice Deppen-Joseph, whom the employees have always called “Mademoiselle”, died on December 4. 2021.
In 2014, the takeover of the company by its managing director, Stéphane Dedieu, nevertheless sounded like a promising new start. Two years later, Caddie took over the site and some of the employees of another metal surface treatment company located north-west of Strasbourg and the victim of a fire, to set up its assembly activities there. , finishing and shipping. In the spring of 2021, the manufacturer finally concentrated all of its production there, laying off 41 people in the process.
Descent into hell
In the meantime, Caddy has accumulated losses: 2.6 million euros in 2017, 5 million in 2018, 6.2 million in 2019, 5 million in 2020 … A descent into hell that neither the acquisition of a majority stake, in 2018, of the Polish Damix, specialist in the layout of stores, nor the reorganization of the company made it possible to stop. In September 2021, the main shareholder, himself weakened by the consequences of the health crisis, thus indicated to management that he no longer wanted to support his subsidiary financially.
“Anything that generated added value, such as the creation of templates or the production of airport trolleys, was subcontracted to our Polish shareholder”, Christophe Payet, CFDT union representative
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