Paris: The BHV du Marais requests its placement in receivership

The Parisian department store BHV Marais announced on Tuesday, October 27, that it would request its placement in receivership "to secure its recovery plan" and "preserve activity and employment", after having experienced numerous setbacks in recent months. Its president Karl-Stéphane Cottendin accuses the lessor of not having paid the compensation due in exchange for the restitution of half of the walls. The recovery project desired by management "is based on an investment plan financed in particular by contractual compensation in exchange for the return to the lessor, in the spring, of more than half of the store", compensation which "has not been paid", it is specified in a press release.

The department store 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 flow owed to it” Karl-Stéphane Cottendin took over the emblematic brand in the center of the capital in June but “what this store is missing today is the cash flow owed to it,” according to the same press release. “The relaunch was to be launched in the summer with these funds: restocking, rearranging the retained scope, speaking again with customers” but “without these funds, it could not be done”, underlines management.

The latter also mentioned “the riots which hit the center of Paris in recent Saturdays, including the looting of the ground floor of the store” and which “completely weighed on an already strained cash flow”. Thus, “two projects (are) necessary: ​​on the one hand, the recovery investments, on the other hand the treatment of liabilities”. This procedure “is, for BHV, the framework for the relaunch, 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. The labor inspectorate suspects the establishment, sold at a loss in June by Frédéric Merlin's SGM to some of its managers, of being in cessation of payments, which management contests.

The company requested protection from the Lyon Economic Activities Court, its management told AFP, confirming information from Le Figaro.

Machine-translated from French