Worried and angry. While the Commercial Court of Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône) announced in early July that it had selected “six offers from buyers”, according to a spokesperson for Alinéa, the approximately 2,000 employees of the furniture and decoration brand are more than tense. Weakened by the yellow vests movement, the strikes linked to the pension reform then the Covid-19 crisis, faced with formidable competition from Ikea, their brand was placed in receivership in mid-May.
The court, which was to reveal the name of the chosen buyer (s) at the end of July, finally postponed its decision to the end of August, asking the current boss, Alexis Mulliez, to use this additional time to improve his copy. But it is already possible to get an idea of the rather black picture which, for the moment, is emerging.
Only 7 stores listed out of 26
First source of concern: “whether it is Gifi, La Foir'fouille , etc. most of the offers would not seem serious and would therefore have little chance of being selected, ”regrets a cautiously anonymous employee representative. Of course, as part of a recovery, companies that apply to relaunch a brand have the opportunity to improve their offer until the last moment. There is therefore still hope. But in the stores of the "French decoration brand with a Mediterranean character", as the slogan proclaimed on the Alinéa website, few employees believe in a miracle.
The anger escalated at the start of the summer. Because the last buyer, the one who is in the process of being selected, is none other than Alexis Mulliez, the current boss of Alinéa, at the head of the company for three years ... “In his offer, he For the time being, only seven of the twenty-six stores that it owns would take over, leaving 1211 out of the 2,000 or so employees unemployed! », Protests an elected to the works council (CE).
If this were to be confirmed, only six stores located in the south of France - the group's head office is in Aubagne (Bouches-du-Rhône) - as well as the Ile-de-France store in Herblay-sur-Seine (Val-d 'Oise) would be taken over, while 19 other stores, including most of those located in Ile-de-France, would close outright.
Minimum severance pay
And employees and unions are all the more shocked that Alexis Mulliez, who is part of the Mulliez galaxy - the owners of Auchan and Decathlon in particular -, would go through another company of which he is a shareholder with the Mulliez family association, Neomarket, to position itself as a buyer. Note that this sleight of hand is legal: since the Covid-19 crisis, a business manager can, more easily than before, buy his own brand, once it has been placed in suspension of payments.
“Previously, you needed an authorization from the commercial court. This step has been removed, ”said a spokesperson for the sign, who insists above all on the fact that the other five offers take up stores, but neither the company nor the brand. If one of them were selected, the company Alinéa would therefore have to be placed in compulsory liquidation. "While Alexis Mulliez's offer aims to take over the company," insists the communications department, which also specifies that, "without giving false hopes, the current offer is not frozen, it is only one step ”.
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The prospective buyers had an appointment with the commercial judges on July 9, in order to see what they would propose, within the framework of the social plan to come, in terms of supralegal severance payments. The unions, for their part, have started to negotiate with management the content of the future social plan since mid-July: “for the time being, employees with 25, even 30 years, in a shop, are only offered the legal minimum, that is to say a misery ”, regrets our elected to the works council.