Which buyer for Go Sport, in receivership since January? The Commercial Court of Grenoble unveils Friday its choice among twenty candidates, in the forefront of which those of Intersport France and the British Frasers.
Barring a new twist, the suspense is finally coming to an end for the approximately 2,150 employees of the sporting goods distributor based on the outskirts of Grenoble who, at the end of the procedure, should quickly leave the bosom of the Bordeaux businessman Michel Ohayon. , himself in financial and legal turmoil.
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The Paris public prosecutor’s office has also opened a judicial investigation for “organized gang fraud, habitual money laundering, bankruptcy and abuse of social property”, as an extension of information opened in Grenoble following “several revelations of criminal facts” reported by Go Sport’s auditors.
To buy Go Sport, the offers of Intersport France and Frasers appear best placed to win against the other candidates, who have only offered partial takeovers of its assets and employees. Intersport France, allied with the Qatari company Al-Mana, offers to take over 72 stores and 1,446 store employees out of 1,574, as well as 185 head office employees (Groupe Go Sport), defending “an ambitious industrial project”.
“Go Sport looks like us, with hiking, skiing, cycling… and similar employee profiles as DNA. And we have a geographical complementarity: where Intersport is weak, Paris and the Paris region, Go Sport has a strong network. And Go Sport is rather absent from the areas, in the provinces, where we are very strong, ”explained its CEO Jacky Rihouet in March.
The other favorite, the British group Frasers, which claims 30,000 employees, is counting on the “perfect synergies” between the two companies, particularly in France, where it currently has only seven stores. “The next few years are going to be exciting” in France “with the Rugby World Cup and the Olympic Games”, underlined at the end of March its operational director Ger Wright, evoking the possibility of building “its activity within the French market in an organic way. if his project for Go Sport was not selected.
In its final offer, the subsidiary of Frasers, Sports Direct, had undertaken to take over 75 stores and 136 of the 227 employees at the headquarters. In stores, Sports Direct would take over 1,477 employees out of the 1,574 identified. Sports Direct also intends to transition Go Sport stores to its Sports Direct brand ‘in a reasoned and gradual manner over the next three or four years’. But for Me Evelyn Bledniak, lawyer for the central social and economic committee (CSEC) of Go Sport, Intersport’s offer offers much better guarantees in terms of “sustainability” of activity and employment.
According to her, some of the announcements made by Frasers during the April 18 hearing “have troubled everyone a bit” and are “likely to change the face of the case considerably” such as the hypothesis of store closures and layoffs. , as well as the “possibility in the very short term of spinning off (some) stores”. “Between the two offers, for me, there is no debate, but we are waiting for the decision,” she said.