Go Sport in turmoil: the 2160 employees will be fixed on January 19 on their future

Three days.

This is the deadline given to the Grenoble Commercial Court to decide the fate of the company Go Sport, in great financial difficulty.

His decision has been reserved until Thursday, September 19.

At the end of 2021, Go Sport had been bought for a symbolic euro by Hermione People & Brands (HPB), the distribution branch of the Bordeaux real estate Financière of businessman Michel Ohayon, who had also acquired the Camaïeu company, liquidated in September 2022.

After two hours of an audience described as “very tense” by several participants, Wilhelm Hubner, the president of HPB, hastened towards the exit, under the boos of some employees.

“Mr. Hubner, why did you loot us like that?

Camaïeu was not enough for you?

It's a shame, you won't take it to paradise", gets carried away by a trade unionist, who then apologizes for having "lost (her) nerves, but more than 2,100 jobs are at stake", recalls- she, very moved.

“The management wants to sell us?

So much the better !

»

The court has three days to choose "between the plague or cholera", according to several employees present.

Either he declares the company insolvent, and a receivership procedure, with the appointment of an administrator, will be initiated.

Either he launches a conciliation procedure with, possibly, the appointment of a buyer.

"This would be done under the aegis of the commercial court, but the management of the company would remain in control", worries Maître Evelyn Bledniak, who represents the elected representatives of the CSEC (Central Social and Economic Committee).

“The management now wants to sell us?

So much the better !

Because we no longer have confidence and want an honest buyer, who will allow us to move forward”, asserts Christine, an employee of the headquarters in Sassenage (Isère), who castigates the “catastrophic balance sheet of the Hubner team”.

Read alsoGO Sport: the troubling 1.8 million euro partnership with a cycling club

While at the end of 2021, when the company was taken over, finances were in excess of 81 million euros, the cash shortfall was around 14 million euros on January 6, 2023. Management had until Monday morning to bail out The boxes.

“Addition of 4 million euros here, movements on the lines of credit there, they fired all the woods to present a surplus of 1.5 million, decrypts Christophe Lavalle, the spokesperson for the CSEC, but that does not hold not the road, because it takes 6 million per month, just to pay salaries.

“According to a participant in the hearing, the prosecutor of the commercial court, annoyed, would have affirmed “that there are limits, even to magic …”

The suspicious acquisition of Gap France for 38 million euros

If confidence has been largely damaged since this fall, the unions, above all, have not digested the “Gap affair”, as they call it.

At the beginning of January, the shareholder announced to them that Go Sport had carried out an external growth operation, by buying Gap France for 38 million euros.

The same Gap France that HPB had bought in 2021, and which was therefore… already part of the group.

“All of this is smoke and mirrors to explain why they raised so much money at the group level”, deciphers Christophe Lavalle.

In the fall, informed by a right to alert unions, the auditors of Go Sport (E&Y and KPMG) had indeed reported disbursements (recoveries at group level) up to “36.3 million euros. 'euros' in the space of a short year.

However, in law, only external growth operations can justify such financial movements.

Bought for 1 euro, Gap France, itself in difficulty, would therefore be worth 38 million now?

“What a masquerade”, blows the chosen one.

“After Camaïeu and Go Sport, we have a Gap file in front of us,” he predicts.

Coming in support of the court on Monday, most of the Go Sport employees present, with their black and white blouses, all tell of a slow descent into hell for a year.

Cédric, employed in Clermont-Ferrand (Puy-de-Dôme), scrolls through the photos of desperately empty “fitness” shelves on his screen.

In Grenoble, at the foot of the mountains, Géraldine and her 22-year-old house had "never seen this: with the exception of après-skis, in sufficient numbers, skis, gloves, hats, like most seasonal items, are at absent subscribers”, blows the one who says she is “sad and angry”.