Two takeover bids for the iconic supermarket trolley manufacturer in financial difficulty were examined on Tuesday, July 16. But the Chamber of Commerce rejected them, due to the lack of a viable takeover solution.
It’s the end of a long story made in FranceThe company Caddie, specializing in the manufacture of supermarket trolleys and metal equipment, will be put into liquidation by the court of Saverne (Bas-Rhin), due to the lack of a viable takeover solution, announced this Tuesday, July 16, the lawyer of the Social and Economic Committee of the company (CSE), Pierre Dulmet. “We have a deliberation this afternoon and there will be no buyer. We are heading towards a hard liquidation”declared Me Dulmet at the end of the morning, at the end of the hearing before the commercial chamber of the Saverne judicial court, which must give its formal decision at 2 p.m. Two takeover offers submitted at the end of June were on the table. The company still employed 110 employees.
Based in Dettwiller, in the Bas-Rhin, Caddie, whose name was registered in 1959, has enjoyed growing success, to the point of becoming synonymous with supermarket trolleys. Originally founded in Alsace in 1928, the wire products company had its moment of glory with the rise of the consumer society, before encountering major difficulties. Placed in receivership with continuation of activity on June 25 by the Saverne court (Bas-Rhin), the company and its bled-dry finances have undergone four receivership procedures since 2012. The most recent procedure had enabled the wage guarantee insurance mechanism (AGS) to be triggered so that employees could be paid.
The first takeover offer came from the current owner, the Cochez group, based in Valenciennes (North) and specializing in transport and industrial services. After announcing that it intended to keep around forty employees, Cochez ultimately planned to keep only 15, the judicial administrator Christophe Gillmé told AFP. The company thus apparently abandoned “industrial activity” and would have focused “on a trading activity and the reconditioning of trolleys”.
The other had been filed by the Skade Management company of Stéphane Dedieu, former owner of Caddie. This minority shareholder, supported by the Italian Bertoldi and the Chinese Arcnode, had already taken over the Alsatian company in 2014, before selling it in 2022 to Cochez, who had then benefited from public aid. His offer would have taken on 42 employees, “maintaining industrial activity and developing trading activity”, according to Christophe Gillmé.
Social breakdown and a little hope
For employees, who have seen their workforce shrink over the past dozen years as recovery plans have been implemented, Stéphane Dedieu’s offer was a good one, because “socially more interesting” than that of Cochez, according to CFDT delegate from Caddie Khairan Ghanmi. The Dedieu offer “proposes to continue industrial activity, or even to return certain products that we no longer have, such as “small series”», which concerns, for example, trolleys in DIY stores or airports, explains the union representative. Despite the social breakdown, she recognized that “The industrial offer is present, contrary to” to that of Cochez, which envisaged stopping the production of carts.
Stéphane Dedieu’s proposal “is the only one that preserves industrial employment on the site”, confirmed the CSE lawyer Pierre Dulmet. “We know that he has a real attachment to the Caddie brand” and, “If he presents this offer, it is not to sell the brand tomorrow. This is a very important point,” he had stressed. But both Khairan Ghanmi and Pierre Dulmet considered the offer to be improvable, particularly the financing, which was not totally assured. The resumption date, set for September 15, was also “too late” for the CSE, according to Pierre Dulmet.
The lawyer nevertheless kept his fingers crossed and hoped that the commercial court would not order a pure and simple liquidation that would destroy all the jobs. If the court validates Stéphane Dedieu’s proposal, “we would leave with a small trolley” more “which would perhaps allow people to be rehired in the future…”. And if the employees are “combative” assures Pierre Dulmet, “They hope they will not be disappointed one last time.”
Update : at 11:22 a.m., with the decision to liquidate the company.
Source: www.liberation.fr
