The specialist in express home delivery of groceries Flink France, which has been in receivership since June, has just been taken over by the current general manager Guillaume Luscan, the German parent company and the Algerian start-up Yassir, with 56% staff numbers maintained, management announced to AFP on Tuesday.
This offer, accepted by the Paris commercial court, provides for the continuation of activity under the Flink brand as well as the takeover of 270 employees, thanks to an investment of more than 5 million euros provided by Yassir. This start-up is “specialized in on-demand and payment services, one of the most valuable in the Europe, Middle East and Africa zone,” Guillaume Luscan explained to AFP on Friday. The financing requirement necessary for the project for the company to reach its profitability threshold is of the order of 5.4 million euros, including the acquisition price of Flink France, approximately 500,000 euros, depending on the offer that AFP consulted.
The buyers wish to refocus the activity “on the most operational sites”, “massify volumes” and significantly reduce fixed costs. They thus retain 14 of the 19 sites which allow this express home delivery of groceries, in the cities of Paris, Lyon, Lille, Marseille, Montpellier, Nice, Bordeaux, Toulouse and Nantes, choosing to close “as a priority” those targeted by the remonstrances from local residents and elected officials due to the incessant comings and goings of delivery people, according to Guillaume Luscan. “We want to develop an activity that fits best into its environment”, particularly regulatory.
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Last March, the government decreed that “dark stores” – these premises where products to be delivered are stored – were warehouses and not businesses, opening the way to regulation by town halls of this activity, and even to the closure of certain sites. The Turkish Getir then announced that it was withdrawing from the French market. Guillaume Luscan, who is also the co-founder of Cajoo (now absorbed by Flink SE), has led Flink France since March 2023. “I believe enormously in the express delivery model, because our customers love our service, we see it in customer satisfaction figures,” rejoiced the general director. “We have a recovery and restructuring plan that allows us to achieve profitability, focusing on improving the customer experience through the expansion of the offering and the addition of new functionalities. the application,” he explained.
The employees remain waiting. “We, the employees, are worried because we do not know who will stay in the company and who will not,” Sorike Kamassokho, representative of the employees and the CGT union section, told AFP. The trade unionist believes that “the thirty or so undocumented workers” at Flink are the “big losers” in this issue.
Another offer to take over the French subsidiary of Flink was submitted in July by the company Human Made SAS, based in Paris, but was finally withdrawn, Mr. Luscan confirmed to AFP.