The Parisian department store BHV Marais requests its placement in receivership

A procedure to try to turn the page. The Parisian department store BHV Marais, which has experienced numerous setbacks in recent months, announced on Tuesday October 27 that it was requesting its placement in receivership "to secure its recovery plan" and "preserve activity and employment". The business founded in 1856 will remain open, said the management of the brand, which employs 700 people, according to figures from September.

“What this store is missing today is the cash owed to it,” says BHV Marais in a press release. Its president, Karl-Stéphane Cottendin, who took over the store in June, accuses the lessor of the business of not having paid compensation due in exchange for the restitution by BHV Marais of half of the store's walls. In a statement sent Tuesday evening, the owner of the walls, the Canadian fund Brookfield, denied "categorically owing any sum to BHV to date".

A cash flow further weakened by the recent "riots" According to the BHV management, "the relaunch was to be launched in the summer with these funds: restocking, redeveloping the retained perimeter, speaking again with customers", but "without these funds, it could not be done". In this difficult context, "the riots which hit the center of Paris in recent Saturdays, including the looting of the ground floor of the store, have further weighed on an already constrained cash flow", she adds. The labor inspectorate suspects the establishment of being in cessation of payments, which management disputes.

The placement in receivership “is, for BHV, the framework for recovery, not its failure”, assures the department store. “It freezes the previous liabilities and orders its processing, without forgetting anyone”, and “protects the brands and suppliers who return, paid on time and with the priority that the law grants them”. In addition, “it gives authority and a timetable to execute the agreements signed by the lessor and include them in the plan,” continues its management.

Machine-translated from French