The employees of Brandt, one of the last large manufacturers of household appliances in France, are now determined on their fate, two months after the group was placed in receivership.
The Nanterre Economic Affairs Court (TAE) pronounced this Thursday the liquidation of the group, announced the president of the Centre-Val de Loire region, despite the takeover project as a cooperative society (Scop), supported by the government and local elected officials.
“This is terrible news, a shock and a very hard blow to French industry,” reacted François Bonneau, referring to a “trauma” on “Christmas Eve” for the approximately 700 group jobs lost after this decision. He specified that he would go alongside employees of the factory located near Orléans during the day.
“A very shocking decision”
In front of one of the group’s factories, in Vendôme, which employs 93 employees in Loir-et-Cher, around sixty employees expressed their anger. “This is a very shocking decision. We did everything, but it didn’t work, we were fine here, we’re all in shock. The Christmas holidays will be sad,” declared Célia Pinto, in front of several lit braziers. Like others, she decided to burn administrative documents in front of the factory, a way of saying “goodbye to Brandt”.
“It’s rage, anger, incomprehension. We will have fought until the end,” added CGT secretary Melkonyan Khachatur.
Brandt, owned since 2014 by the Algerian group Cevital, has a turnover of 260 million euros. The company is particularly suffering the consequences of the difficult times experienced by the large household appliances sector.
Affected by the persistent real estate crisis, it recorded a further decline in sales last year (-3.9%), after having already fallen in 2023.
Politicians wanted to save French “know-how”
Among the offers submitted, only the Scop project (cooperative and participatory company), supported by the Revive group, would have made it possible to save at least 300 jobs, out of the nearly 700 that Brandt has in France, indicated the Minister for Industry Sébastien Martin. It also constituted the only possibility of saving the group’s two factories, located near Orléans, in Loiret, and in Vendôme, in Loir-et-Cher, according to union sources.
Faced with the risk of the brand disappearing, the government and local elected officials stepped up their efforts to ensure that a takeover by employees, particularly in the name of French “know-how”, was possible.
The metropolis of Orléans has promised a contribution, as has the Centre-Val de Loire region which confirmed on Tuesday that it would “provide the financial means”, adding that the support of industrial sites is notably envisaged for an amount between 4.5 and 5 million euros. “We are already at around 15 million euros mobilized,” Sébastien Martin said Tuesday on RMC.
“We don’t understand, the support was there, an unprecedented mobilization had been made by the public authorities,” said François Bonneau, who had previously estimated the total public commitments at “nearly 20 million euros”.
A few minutes after the announcement, the government expressed its “deep sadness” after the judicial liquidation of the Brandt household appliances group, “a French flagship that is dying out”, words signed by the Minister of the Economy and Finance, Roland Lescure, and his colleague in charge of Industry, Sébastien Martin.
Recalling having announced State support to the tune of 5 million euros and the support of communities, they deplored that “despite this, the other essential actors did not wish to position themselves to save Brandt”, seeming to designate, without naming them, the banks.
The government had in recent days called on the banks to “play the game”, their support being essential to convince the court of the viability of the only takeover project submitted, in the form of a Scop, supported by the Revive group.
Disappearance of three other French household appliance brands
The task promised to be difficult, for a group whose production is almost at a standstill. Between 20 and 25 million euros in total would be necessary to relaunch the activity of Brandt, which will no longer be able to pay salaries after December 15, confirmed sources.
With this decision, the manufacturer of Brandt products disappears, just like the three other French household appliance brands Vedette, Sauter and De Dietrich.
In addition to its two factories in France, in Center-Val de Loire, Brandt has an after-sales service center in the Paris region, in Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône (Val-d’Oise). Its head office is located in Rueil-Malmaison (Hauts-de-Seine).