“Brico Privé strategic choice of the Musketeers.
174 jobs eliminated.
» This is what we can read on the facade of the Toulouse headquarters of Brico Privé, installed since 2021 in La Cité.
This Thursday, February 29, the site's employees gathered to express their concern and disgust at the lack of communication from Groupement Les Mousquetaires, majority shareholder of the company since 2020, which decided to close the Brico Privé site and launch a job protection plan.
A hard blow for this private sales site for DIY and gardening enthusiasts created in 2012 in L'Union (Haute-Garonne) by Julien Boué and Marc Leverger.
A drop in activity “due to inflation”
While it was counting on this merger to “take a new step and gain several years in its development”, Brico Privé ultimately never reached the objective of €200 million in turnover that it had set itself. for 2021. On the contrary, activity has decreased, notably due to inflation which has restricted the budget of the French, therefore pushing the new owners to make a decision.
“Despite the investments made in recent years to, among other things, increase the notoriety of Brico Privé, the strategic choices made did not allow the recovery of the economic situation of the company, which did not manage to adapt to changes in the market and the decline in its activity.
It is therefore planned to stop the activity of BricoPrivé and to favor the development of Racetools, the results of which are balanced,” the group indicated in particular.
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On October 9, Les Mousquetaires took back control, removing the founders to whom they had given autonomy in the management of the company at the time of their entry into the capital.
“Laurent Pussat, from Groupement Les Mousquetaires, introduced himself to us as the new president of Brico Privé and president of the CSE.
David Collas was our new general manager.
A decision that they justified by a lack of results,” confides, disappointed, Karoline Vitrant, staff delegate and CSE representative.
Then, despite several requests for information about what happened next, the employees knew nothing until mid-January, when the PSE was announced to them.
If the staff representatives were informed of the measures of this PSE, Karoline Vitrant assures that they were asked not to communicate them to employees.
“Since then, we have been fighting for the dissemination of these measures, which fall short of the Professional Security Contract (CSP).
It’s scandalous,” underlines the woman who has worked for Brico Privé for 9 years.
“There were other solutions than closing permanently.
Especially for a group with a turnover of €45 billion.
We want measures accordingly.
»