An IT fiasco, competition from Action... The GiFi brand is placed in receivership
The Toulouse commercial court confirmed this Tuesday the company's placement in receivership. It orders an observation period of six months to determine “whether the company has sufficient financial capacity to…
It's now official. In great difficulty, the GiFi group which employs 6,000 employees in France was placed in receivership this Tuesday, announced the Toulouse commercial court.
The court orders an observation period of six months and sets an appointment on January 8 for a new hearing aimed at "determining whether the company has sufficient financial capacity to continue its activity and maintain the observation period. A "degraded" market The brand had requested its placement in receivership on October 20. The new chairman of the GiFi board, Patrick Puy, said he wanted to "protect as many employees as possible".
“As you know, the market deteriorated significantly during the summer and GiFi was not spared. (...) To protect the company and continue its activity, we decided (...
) to request the opening of a judicial recovery procedure with the competent court", Patrick Puy had announced to employees a few days earlier, in a letter consulted by AFP. Patrick Puy, whose appointment was announced in mid-October, assured that this procedure would not lead "by itself to any immediate consequences on employment and to no new PSE (employment protection plan). This is in reality the third procedure in the space of two years for this brand of 500 stores in France, founded in 1981 by Philippe Ginestet, still owner of 60% of the capital (40% being held by the creditor banks).
The problems of the group based in Villeneuve-sur-Lot (Lot-et-Garonne) began with a failed change of IT system in 2023, to which was added competition from other stores (Action, Maxibazar) or internet platforms like Temu. Despite several attempts at recovery, GiFi has never managed to escape this spiral. In 2025, the brand founded by Philippe Ginestet in 1981 had considered reducing its workforce by 5%, before interrupting this social plan.
It has since approached the food distributor Grand Frais to sell it around thirty stores, out of the more than 500 it has.
Machine-translated from French
Why it is marked verified
2 independent newsrooms report this story. BFM Business published it first, 48 min before the last one.
- BFM Business3 Nov, 09:17
- Le Figaro3 Nov, 10:06
| Publisher BFM Business (established tier) | +76 |
| Detailed summary | +2 |
| Carried by 2 newsrooms | +5 |
| Total | 83 |
Method: reports are grouped by the words of their headline and summary; each newsroom counts once; figures are read from the reports as published. Nothing here is written by an AI.