ECONOMY: Pronuptia, which has 41 shops and 234 employees, claimed the position of market leader
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This Thursday, the French distributor of wedding dresses confirmed the final closure of the business.
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Placed in compulsory liquidation, the group failed to pay its debt.
It’s over for Pronuptia and its 234 employees. This Thursday, the French distributor of wedding dresses confirmed the final closure of the business. In a judgment rendered Tuesday the Laval Commercial Court pronounced “the rejection of takeover offers”. Asked about the final closure of Pronuptia, a source at the company’s headquarters in Louverné ( Mayenne ) replied: “yes, I confirm it” without further details or comment.
The Pronuptia company had been placed in compulsory liquidation by the Laval Commercial Court in September 2019. The group’s president, Philippe Macé, had then explained that the distributor had “no results” and could not honour the payment of the debt. The group was in business until December 4 and a court administrator had been appointed to find buyers.
Pronuptia, which has 41 shops and claims to be the market leader, was placed in recovery in 2012 and then a continuation plan adopted in 2013. The payment of its debt had been spread over 10 years. In September, he still had 9 million euros to reimburse. A number of marriages that “has never been so low” and three months marked by the movement of yellow vests had also affected the activity of the group, to which were added the price of the dollar and competition from online sales.
“The wedding dress market is terrible”
In a press release, the president of the haute couture wedding dress house Cymbeline expressed his “sadness”. “Pronuptia was, is, and will remain an iconic name in the world of the bride and for the French”, reacted Jean-Philippe Lautraite, whose brand was still alone “with Pronuptia not to go to China and to remain French “.
“The wedding dress market is terrible,” said the boss of Cymbeline. “We have little control over the final number of marriages to be celebrated, we are undergoing demographic curves and the ageing of populations in Europe” and “90% of wedding dresses come from China “, he added.
