The liquidation of the office partition manufacturer Clestra Métal, recently renamed Unterland Métal, was declared on Tuesday, leading to the upcoming elimination of 125 jobs at the Illkirch-Graffenstaden site (Bas-Rhin), we learned from a source union.
The Paris commercial court, to which the company falls, “refuses our request for a period of receivership to find a possible buyer; he has just declared the judicial liquidation of Unterland Métal,” announced the CGT section of the company in a press release. “There are 125 employees who lose their jobs,” added the majority union. Management confirmed the liquidation, specifying that “the layoffs would be notified by October 24.”
She announced, last Wednesday, the filing for bankruptcy of the company and the request for its placement in compulsory liquidation, “in the face of an exceptional situation which made recovery totally impossible”. The Illkirch site had been the scene for three months of a strike initiated by the CGT following the dismissal for serious misconduct of an employee. Management considered this conflict as the “decisive factor” of the bankruptcy filing, because “it paralyzed the activity and wiped out the order book,” Rémi Taieb, president of Unterland Métal, told AFP last Wednesday. This context comes on top of “significant financial and operating difficulties for more than ten years”, according to management.
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Unterland Métal (formerly Clestra Métal) is the production subsidiary of the Clestra New group (250 employees), which is not otherwise affected by the decision of the commercial justice. Clestra was taken over in October 2022, after a period of receivership, by the French community furniture group Jestia, managed by the Jacot family. “Everything was planned in advance by the Jacot brothers, who squandered everything,” denounced the CGT.
Management, for its part, pointed out, in a press release on Tuesday, “the constant opposition of the CSE (Social and Economic Committee) of Unterland Métal to the deployment of the ambitious and necessary recovery and development plan”, which it had presented during the resumption. Clestra New will be able to continue its activity, because “we have already reorganized ourselves, through the use of other suppliers, including the Jestia production factories,” Rémi Taieb explained to AFP last week.