SHOES: The Commercial Court of Marseille will rule on February 20 on the future of the shoe brand.
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The Commercial Court of Marseilles has deliberated on Monday, February 20, its decision concerning the future of San Marina.
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Employees of the shoe brand are preparing for the inevitable, and particularly regret “a lack of risk in the collections”.
The future of San Marina will be sealed on February 20 but the “cold shower” has already passed for the employees of the shoe brand. “We know very well that we are going to liquidation, there is no longer any hope of recovery”, breathes Christine Dalmasso, 28 years of seniority in the company, who climbed the ladder to become store assistant in La Valette, near Toulon. Like the more than 600 employees in France, she learned on Monday that the two shareholders were abandoning their offer to take over 49 stores, out of the 163 in the group, for lack of funding.
And this Friday’s hearing at the Commercial Court of Marseille – the company’s headquarters is in Gémenos (Bouches-du-Rhône) – drives the point home a little more. The ten offers of takeovers presented would hardly have convinced, in particular, the too-limited number of stores and jobs saved. “All agree, between judicial administrators and employees, that they are inadmissible,” said AFP Helmi Farhat, secretary of the social and economic committee.
For the time being, as long as the court has not rendered its deliberation, the activity of San Marina and its stores continues normally. “I started looking elsewhere,” says Deborah Basquin, 42 years old and seven years with San Marina. But the heart is a little heavy: “My store is not part of the PSE already committed, it is not loss-making. We have not suffered a decline in turnover, and we have met last year’s objective. “While the store in downtown Metz had to close in December, that of Deborah, bright and located in the Waves Actisud shopping centre on the outskirts, held up well. Despite the deliveries which were delayed when the receivership was announced in September: “The carriers have blocked. When we receive the boots in December, it’s too late. »
” Move of mercy “
She regrets the “lack of risk” in the collections and also the “bad choices”, such as the discontinuation this season of the Galicia pump with the very comfortable slipper, a classic of the house. “All our customers adored him, we had brought him up, but we never listen enough to the field. “But the coup de grace was the decision of the Court of Cassation to charge all the Covid rents,” she believes. In the South, his colleague Christine Dalmasso also points to “a management of the company and the collections that are not there”. “Basically San Marina, it’s a brand with good value for money, quite popular, we were a hit,” she recalls. There is a more modern turn that has not been taken. We lost customers. »
