Laurent Guillot wishes to reassure himself about the current situation but also about the future of Orpea, of which he took command last July, just a few months after the publication of the book “Les Fossoyeurs” which revealed serious dysfunctions within the structures of the cluster. “The fundamental thing is that the company is healthy because even today we are generating cash but not enough to pay all our debts and therefore we will have to renegotiate with creditors,” he summarized on the set of Good Morning Business this Wednesday morning.
An interview that took place at a certain time, the day after the raids carried out in various establishments of the group. “That does not prevent serenity because these raids, we had some in the spring, he recalled. The teams are ready and we are operating open book with the public ministry and justice. These raids are from the past and from particular cases. that we are going to treat and we are going to leave all the clarity on what happened”.
Hiring started and salary increase expected
To highlight the positive signs at work internally, Orpea’s CEO mentioned in particular the recent unanimous agreement with staff representatives when no salary negotiations had been successful for 15 years. “The revaluation [des salaires] It is part of the measures that we are going to implement, he said. We are also going to hire, it is absolutely necessary. I had committed to hiring 150 people per month plus 800 next year, also per month. Since the beginning of September, we have been recruiting 800 people per month.” As a reminder, Orpea employs more than 70,000 people, including 26,000 in France.
After taking a breather through real estate sales this summer, the company was forced to place itself under the protection of the commercial court in order to restructure its debt, which opens the way to a renegotiation of the latter with creditors. “Assignments, whether with real estate or operating assets, are not a help to solve our debt problem, he ruled out. Today we are so indebted that a transfer would further aggravate the problem. We would not sell in proportions that would allow us to extinguish or significantly reduce Debt.
Source: BFM TV
