It’s the cold shower. No offer has been submitted for the takeover of the Poitou “Alu” foundry, automotive subcontractor with 300 employees in Vienne, which is getting ever closer to compulsory liquidation according to a union source. “This Monday at 5 p.m., deadline set by the commercial court of Paris, no buyer has come forward,” said Jean-Philippe Juin, CGT union representative and spokesperson for the CGT / CFE-CGC inter-union.
The fate of the Ingrandes-sur-Vienne site, north of Châtellerault, which manufactures aluminum cylinder heads essential to its only customer, Renault, will be fixed on Wednesday during a meeting between the judicial administrators, the State, the builder and the unions. “It can go very quickly. If a request for liquidation is filed by the administrators, the court will be obliged to organize a hearing within three weeks,” said Jean-Philippe Juin. A strike by factory workers is also scheduled for Wednesday.
A visit from a possible buyer still maintained
Two companies, the Italian group RJ SRL, a machinist in the heavy-duty market, and the Orleans foundry Sifa Technologies have expressed their interest, but this remains “very low”, according to the union representative. A visit is scheduled next week to present the site. “We try to keep hope as long as the factory is not closed”, assured Jean-Philippe Juin, who also regretted that “the question of the reindustrialization of France” is not at the heart of the debates of the ‘presidential election.
The subcontractor, in receivership, had obtained two reprieves from the court last October and January to find a buyer, each time without success. For its part, the Renault group has undertaken in writing to support the volumes of the factory until February 2023, if no buyer appears, and until 2025 in the event of a takeover. A subsidiary of the Alvance group of the Indo-Briton Sanjeev Gupta, Fonderie du Poitou Alu has been in difficulty for several years. The adjoining Fonderie du Poitou Fonte factory, which produced diesel crankcases for Renault, closed its doors this summer.