Three months after the presentation of a recovery plan, the BHV Marais department store requests its placement in receivership

The Parisian department store BHV Marais, which has experienced numerous setbacks in recent months, announced on Tuesday that it was requesting its placement in receivership "to secure its recovery plan" and "preserve activity and employment". Its president Karl-Stéphane Cottendin accuses the lessor of BHV, the Canadian fund Brookfield, of not having paid the compensation due in exchange for the restitution of half of the store's walls. Brookfield, the owner of the walls, refutes the accusations made by the Parisian department store.

“Brookfield categorically denies owing any amount to BHV to date,” indicates the Canadian fund in a statement sent to AFP. “The store remains open, the teams are on duty and our ambition is the same”, nevertheless explains to Le Figaro Karl-Stéphane Cottendin, the president of BHV. 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.

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 framework of the recovery, not a failure” The latter also mentioned “the riots which hit the center of Paris in recent Saturdays, up to 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 the 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 - resold at a loss in June by Frédéric Merlin's SGM to some of its managers - of being in cessation of payments, which management disputes. The company requested protection from the Lyon Economic Activities Court, its management told AFP, confirming information from Le Figaro.

Machine-translated from French