Gap, Kookaï, Camaïeu, Go Sport, San Marina, Galeries Lafayette… For the past few weeks, major brands known and loved by the public have been in financial difficulty, or even closed. Downtown locations and malls are inexorably empty of mid-range historic shops, waiting for new investors.
Department stores have indeed suffered from social movements, such as that of the Yellow Vests in 2019, then from the Covid crisis a year later. Massive blows to which must be added competition from online sales, the boom in the second-hand market, inflation and, finally, the cost of raw materials and energy. The Alpes-Maritimes and the Var are no exception to this bleeding, caused by changing consumption habits.
Monday, February 20, the Marseille shoemaker San Marina was placed in compulsory liquidation, dragging in its brutal fall some 650 employees in France, distributed in 160 shops. A few days earlier, Saturday February 18 marked the end of the 14 stores on the Riviera and Var. Like that of the Mayol center, in Toulon, which employed two full-time CDIs and a part-time CDD.
Camaïeu gone, Go Sport in great difficulty
No Gap store with us, placed this Monday February 27 in receivership by the Grenoble commercial court, but the fall of the Bordeaux businessman Michel Ohayon, who also owns Camaïeu and Go Sport via his group Hermione People & Brands, is also redesigning the commercial landscape of 06 and 83.
512 points of sale of the Camaïeu brand, including 10 in the Alpes-Maritimes and 7 in the Var, have already led to the loss of 2,600 jobs throughout the country. From Nice to Grasse, via La Trinité or Saint-Raphaël, curtains have been lowered on the chain.
Same parent company for Go Sport, which has already closed its Place Masséna brand in Nice, following the sporting goods brand was placed in receivership in early February, following a cessation of payment. The other stores of the brand are suspended everywhere else in France, including here, pending a buyer.
The Camaïeu-Go Sport pair, united under the same banner, would thus represent 150 jobs lost in recent weeks in the Alpes-Maritimes according to the CGT, questioned by Nice-Matin.
Galeries Lafayette in turmoil in Cannes and Toulon
Another historical brand on borrowed time, Kookaï. Notably present at CAP 3000 in Saint-Laurent-du-Var, will the brand follow this disastrous fate? On Wednesday February 1, the brand announced its placement in receivership, due “to the economic difficulties facing the ready-to-wear sector in Europe”according to a press release.
121 stores will remain open, and their 320 employees in operation for the time being. What regarding the Kookaï stands present in shopping malls, including Galeries Lafayette in Nice or Toulon? Ironically, the Hermione People & Brands group also owns 25 Galeries Lafayette department stores in the region. The latter were placed under safeguard by the commercial court on Saturday, February 18. In the Alpes-Maritimes and the Var, Cannes and Toulon are concerned. The CFDT has already called for a strike in mid-February.
As a reminder, a “safeguard procedure” (or “backup”) is aimed at companies in difficulty, but which are not yet insolvent. “The objective is to facilitate the reorganization of the company, to enable it to maintain its economic activity, jobs, and to ensure the settlement of its debts”, says the law. At the end of a backup procedure, a “backup plan” is often put in place.
In Cannes and Toulon, we are therefore awaiting the decision of the commercial court. “Everything is going well for us. The sales are even going very well”, reassured at the end of January Valérie Dumaire, the director of the Galeries du boulevard de Strasbourg in Toulon. “Of course, we have the same investor. But Camaïeu like Go Sport belong to another subsidiary of the holding company. We are not in the same branch. It is therefore not a subject for our brand”, she said then. Case to follow.
