Carmat retains his breath. On Tuesday, August 19, the Versailles Commercial Court will examine the only recovery offer that was presented to save the French flagship of the artificial heart.
In financial difficulties, the company created in 2008 and Ipart in the stock market in 2010, whose headquarters are in Vélizy-Villacoublay (Yvelines), requested the beginning of summer in bankruptcy. A decision -making decision of this French medical innovation symbol, in lack of payment after not being able to gather the necessary funds to pay their creditors.
A purchase to 1 million euros
Then a call for tenders was launched to save the Heart Aeson manufacturer … but only an offer was presented before the deadline established for July 31. According to BFM Business’s information, it comes from Pierre Basid, president of the Board of Directors of Carmat.
The former head of Schneider, Valeo and Thomson, who arrived at the head of the Board of Directors in June 2024 and already possessing 20% of the company, the businessman put in Table 1 million euros to resume Carmat through his Belgian family company, according to the BFM consumption making offer could consult. But in addition to the purchase price, it undertakes to provide 150 million euros for five years, including 40 million for next January.
For this, Pierre Basid does not lack motivation: he has already invested 60 million euros since 2017 in Carmat. And to finance its acquisition, it has just sold a prestigious real estate asset in New York, estimated at $ 76 million. On the employment side, Pierre Basid promises to resume all the necessary contracts to continue the activity, that is, the 138 employees.
In case of validation of the commercial court, the offer must also be approved by the Ministry of Economy before being ratified. In fact, Carmat officiates in the strategic public health sector and would then be addressed by a foreign company, in this Belgian case, which requires the posterior current of the government.
Liquidation risk
The only solution to put Carmat on the feet on the back: transplant 500 cores per year. But with only 42 operations last year and 16 in the first quarter of 2025, Carmat is still far from being profitable. A new version of the heart is in development and Pierre Basid promises to increase the price by 15 to 20%, today to 167,000 euros on average.
In a statement published on its website on Wednesday, August 13, Carmat announced the suspension of its course since August 14, ascending of the hearing scheduled by the Commercial Court of Versailles on Tuesday.
If the judge pronounces the liquidation, he will sign the most promising artificial heart stop. The only recovery offer that has been presented is the only possibility of saving 30 years of research and the medium medium of euro transplantation.
120 transplanted patients
On the eve of the audience, Stéphane Piat, CEO of Carmat, continues to trust in spite of everything. After 120 transplanted patients, he considers that the project is too important to be arrested. The boss ensures that his teams do everything he needs to continue, including work in degraded conditions.
Because the goal is clear: to finish the new model of cardiac prostheses and implement it in a patient before the end of the year.
However: after a succession of strategic errors, promises too ambitious and multiple investors, Carmat lost its support one by one: BPIFRANCE and then Airbus left the company’s capital, weighted by a degraded brand image after the death of two patients in 2021.
In addition, these deaths had led the company to suspend the locations of its artificial heart Aeson for almost a year, between the end of 2021 and October 2022. However, improvements had been made in the system since their first establishment in a patient in 2014, Carmat dreaming with a “final heart” that would finally replace the sickly heart.
So, should we continue or stop costs? If management wants to remain optimistic to the Court’s decision, she knows that this is perhaps the end of the story this time for Carmat.
Source: BFM TV
