The furniture and decoration brand Alinea in liquidation, 1,200 jobs lost

It’s over for Alinea. The Marseille Economic Court rejected this Tuesday the only takeover offer from the furniture brand, thus pronouncing its judicial liquidation and the loss of 1,200 jobs.

The brand, in receivership since November 20, received a single global takeover offer on March 5 from a Romanian group, which undertook to preserve half of the employees and 20 of the 36 stores. But the proposal was deemed “inadmissible”, indicates the management of the French company.

During the hearing before the Marseille Economic Court in the presence of the various parties, five other offers considered anecdotal were issued by Ikea, Grand Frais, Cargo, B&M and Leroy Merlin. These companies wanted to take over stores on the margin, with the key being to maintain 8 to 30 employees, depending on the proposals.

The only complete offer was thus made by the holding company SDC, based in Bucharest, which created a surprise by finally submitting a file at the beginning of March, just before the final closing of applications for the takeover, after having initially withdrawn in February. No SDC representative appeared at the hearing to defend its offer.

47 million euros in losses in 2024

Alinea had been placed in receivership even though it presented, for the 2024 financial year, losses of 47 million euros for 162 million euros in turnover.

In 2020, the furniture brand in the Mulliez galaxy (Auchan, Decathlon, Leroy Merlin, etc.), founded in 1988 in Avignon, had already undergone a first judicial recovery, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic and was finally taken over by its own shareholders. In the process, it lost 17 stores and nearly 1,000 employees, before integrating around twenty Zodio stores (decoration), another Mulliez brand, into its fold in 2023.