A little fresh reminder… Some important details.
And an update from CAFOM regarding the sale of Habitat.
Who really is Thierry Le Guénic, the man who sank “Habitat”, “Burton of London” and “Orcanta”?
12/29/2023 – 11:00 CET
The decision was taken by the Bobigny commercial court. It’s the end of the designer furniture brand Habitat and its twenty stores in France. According to the judges, the situation was “irreparably compromised” for Habitat in particular “because of the lack of cash flow and the impossibility of using the brand”. The announcement leaves 300 employees behind, mountains of unpaid debts and 9 million euros in deposits paid by customers who never managed to obtain their furniture or their reimbursements.
In a letter addressed to AFP, Thierry Le Guénic, the buyer of Habitat in 2020, admits not having “succeeded in meeting this challenge, just like the previous shareholders”. But he exonerates himself by believing that he was able to avoid “any social plan” and by claiming to have invested more than 12 million euros in digital technology and the opening of points of sale.
Thierry Le Guénic judges that his projects and ambitions “could not be realized in a very unfavorable economic context (…) and in the face of obvious internal resistance”.
A version significantly different from that of the Cafom group, a major player in home equipment in Europe and Overseas, and owner of the Habitat brand.
The company Cafom being listed on the Stock Exchange, it wanted to remind its shareholders that it had granted the license of the Habitat brand to the company HDI as part of the transfer of the entire capital of the company HDI, on 6 October 2020 to the company Terence Capital, a company owned by Mr. Thierry Le Guénic.
For Cafom, this decision was linked to the group’s desire to refocus on the management of overseas franchises and e-commerce sites. The Group is the majority shareholder of the website vente-unique.com and the leader in the distribution of home equipment overseas with the brands BUT, Darty, BUT Cozy, Habitat, Nature & Découvertes and Musique et Son. ). It also owns the Habitat brand and the international B2B site directlowcost.com.
On the date of the sale, HDI had cash flow net of financial debts of 15 million euros, 23 million in inventory (warehouse + stores), 3 million euros in supplier advances on logistics services and a financing plan validated by the Commercial Court.
In addition to providing the exclusive operating license to HDI, the Cafom group also provided, through its subsidiary Vente-unique.com, logistics services on behalf of HDI. Over the last financial year ending September 30, 2023, the Group invoiced HDI 6.9 million euros for these services, or 1.7% of the Cafom Group’s consolidated turnover.
The group also recalls that it operates, overseas, 5 stores under the Habitat brand, which made 6.1 million euros during the last financial year, and whose activity continues normally.
“Faced with the situation, Cafom took the decision to “terminate the brand license due to the growing dissatisfaction of customers with HDI, in particular with regard to the failure to deliver the goods ordered. The effects of this termination were confirmed by an order from the President of the Bobigny Commercial Court.
“In this context, the Cafom Group takes note of the judicial liquidation of HDI and is studying the best options to promote the Habitat brand.”
In the departure agreement, the Cafom group remained the owner of the Habitat brands, given an exclusive operating license to HDI, for 3 years, until October 2023, with a fixed remuneration of 300,000 euros per year and an option to The purchase of these brands can be exercised at the end of this period.
At the beginning of the fall, Le Guénic therefore did not keep its commitments to Cafom. Which definitively condemned the operation of the brand in France.
The disillusioned employees discovered at that time that in reality the company no longer had any cash. Thierry Le Guénic, who took over Habitat in 2020 for a symbolic euro, only paid 60% of November salaries and was counting on the legal salary guarantee scheme to complete and pay for the month of December.
Likewise, “for several weeks, or sometimes several months, the company has not paid any invoices, rent or suppliers”. Some employees have also exercised their right of withdrawal in the absence of heating due to a lack of paid bill. And this situation got worse in the face of customer orders.
According to Mediapart, the general manager Franck Deshayes then suddenly left the company and the financial director placed on sick leave. In fact, “since spring 2022, we started to sink, paying less and less rent, heating bills, security service providers, cleaning service providers, etc.,” explains the secretary of the social and economic committee (CSE) of Habitat Ratiba Hamache, also central CGT union delegate. And still according to Mediapart, nearly 30 million euros have disappeared from Habitat’s accounts in just two years.
Presented as a “serial entrepreneur”, Thierry Le Guenic is not his first attempt. Often associated with Stéphane Collaert, the duo has made a lot of noise on the ready-to-wear and shoe world since 2017, taking over various businesses in quick succession: Chevignon, CosmoParis, San Marina, all three from the former Vivarte group, then Maison Lejaby as well as Rasurel swimwear. The two fifty-year-olds have a lot in common, both graduates in finance from Paris Dauphine University, they began their careers, one at the auditing and consulting firm Deloitte, the other at Arthur Andersen.
The entrepreneur-investor Thierry Le Guénic then bought, alone, Habitat in 2020. The same year, this businessman took over the clothing brand Burton of London, placed in receivership last summer and which has not found a buyer.
To relaunch the ready-to-wear brand, sold by the Omnium group (Devred, Bouchara, etc.), Le Guénic had tasked a new general director, Anne-Laure Couplet, with transforming 40 stores out of the 125 of the he teaches a new concept called Sauvage Poésie. Multi-brand stores in the “Anthropologie or Sezane” style, selling products from the Faguo, Pataugas brands or the Aimée jewelry brand in addition to the brands owned by the entrepreneur.
In the summer of 2023, one of its other brands, Orcanta (lingerie) was placed in receivership.
But insatiable, again this year, Thierry Le Guénic bought the kitchen equipment chain, Alice Délice, and the meal kit delivery start-up Quitoque. An opportunity for Le Guénic “to establish synergies with Alice Délice.”