The end of the sales undoubtedly has a very bitter taste for Cop employees. Girlfriend: the ready-to-wear brand, in receivership since last November, has not found a buyer for all of its stores. The brand created 37 years ago will therefore disappear and only 23 of its 48 branches should be bought by the Antonelle group. In Besançon, the permanent closure of the shop located at the corner of rue des Granges and rue Morand has already been announced: it should take place in the coming days, after a “big sale”.
Not the only brand in difficulty
It’s not the only struggling clothing brand. For several months the sector, in full mutation, has been going through a zone of great turbulence: Camaïeu closed all its shops at the beginning of October – in Besançon only a few naked models are still visible in the premises located at 28 Grande rue. Go Sport has just been placed in receivership. Same thing for Kookai. As for the Pimkie brand (also present in Besançon), it should soon change hands: the company has been negotiating its takeover with a consortium for several months. An imminent transfer which could cause the disappearance of 500 jobs according to the unions.
In short, a dark period. And that could last: three holding companies of the Bordeaux investor Michel Ohayon have indeed just been placed in receivership. Three companies which have no direct relationship with the clothing sector – they have enabled the financing or the acquisition of luxury hotels – but which shed additional light on the situation of Michel Ohayon. It was he who, in recent years, had bought Camaïeu (with the outcome that we know) but also Go Sport.
And it is the same one who acquired several Galeries Lafayette stores five years ago. Among which that of Besançon.
In short, a shareholder visibly in difficulty and worried employees: an economic alert right procedure was launched last December by the social and economic committee of Galeries Lafayette.