A former flagship liquidated, a chain of stores in crisis, an investigation for suspicions of abuse of social good: the Go Sport syndicate, after the abrupt liquidation of Camaieu, obscures the projects of businessman Michel Ohayon in distribution.
In the summer of 2021, everything was going well for Hermione People & Brands (HPB), the entity that brings together the distribution activities run by businessman Michel Ohayon. In “off”, its leaders had then detailed to AFP their great ambitions in their sector, but also the origin of the entity’s name.
“Brands”, for the prestigious brands that the Bordeaux investor had seized, often at low prices or in court: first certain Galeries Lafayette stores in the regions, the former textile flagship Camaieu, Go Sport, La Grande Récré, Gap France or Café Legal.
“People” means the people who work in these companies.
And “Hermione”, in homage to the three-masted ship in which the Marquis de La Fayette had crossed the Atlantic in 1780 to assist the insurgents engaged in the American War of Independence.
Galeries Lafayette was the first retail asset purchased by Michel Ohayon, who has since reduced his equity ties to “HPB.”
“All in one”
The objective of the former managing director of Auchan Wilhelm Hubner, and of Samuel Alimi, respectively president and vice-president associated with “HPB”: to propose to the cities to strengthen the commercial offer there with an “all in one”, since the entity owns brands general (Galeries Lafayette), but also specialized in sports, toys or textiles.
The leaders pointed to “spaces of 3,000 to 4,000 square meters that are free” to install their brands there, or even others who wanted to join them, as Wilhelm Hubner had detailed in the summer of 2022 in Les Echos. Then “a hundred cities” were attacked.
But at the same time several owners are alarmed: Camaieu no longer pays part of his rent. At the end of June 2022, the Court of Cassation ruled that the merchants forced to close during the confinement decreed in the spring of 2020 to curb the pandemic had indeed to pay the rent for this period.
Placed in suspension of payments by the Commercial Court of Lille, Camaieu was liquidated at the end of September, leaving 2,600 employees on the ground. HPB has presented a plan for the continuation of the activity, but it is “very poorly educated”, the Delegate Minister for Industry, Roland Lescure, told AFP.
Investigation for “abuse of social goods”
The bad news accumulates: a few months after Camaieu, it is the representatives of the Go Sport employees who say they fear “suffering the fate of the Camaieu employees”. They alert the Grenoble justice, because the company of about 2100 employees is based in Sassenage, in Isère.
Earlier in the week, Liberación revealed that the courts had opened an investigation for “abuse of social property” following a report made by auditors in November.
HPB executives insist that Go Sport could return to profit in 2023, after “17 years” of losses, and that it is “not in default.”
On January 3, the specialist in restructuring companies in crisis, Patrick Puy, was appointed CEO of Go Sport with the mission of “continuing (its) necessary transformation”.
But on Thursday, parent group Groupe Go Sport is finally deemed insolvent by the Grenoble commercial court and the entity is in receivership.
The Go Sport France subsidiary, in which the group’s stores are housed according to a union source, has not been declared insolvent. But “its situation will be affected by that of its parent company”, specifies the Grenoble parquet in a press release.
A decision far from clearing up all the uncertainties about the situation of the brand and, by extension, about the ambitions of HPB and Michel Ohayon in distribution.
Source: BFM TV
