The Japanese restaurant chain has been placed in compulsory liquidation. His boss hopes to keep the brand and develop the brand as a franchise.
Delicate situation for the two new Planet Sushi restaurants, which will open their doors this week in Issy-les-Moulineaux and Perpignan. The restaurant chain has indeed been placed in liquidation by the Commercial Court of Nanterre, as revealed by our colleagues from the informed. The boss and founder of Planet Sushi, Siben N’Ser, is not angry with this decision. “The court blames us, because there was no reason to make this hasty decision“, he storms.
The company created in 1998 has been facing difficulties for many years. After being placed in safeguard proceedings between 2014 and 2015, it was placed in receivership in March 2020, just before the first confinement, due to too much debt. The founder then succeeded in convincing the Nanterre commercial court that he was in the best position to turn the company around, by ensuring that 100% of the staff was taken over. “We had a 21-month observation period which allowed us to show that the company had recovered“, he congratulates himself. At the end of 2021, a continuation plan with debt settlement over ten years is approved. Planet Sushi, which achieves a turnover of more than 60 million euros, then has about twenty own restaurants and about thirty franchises. The network as a whole employs nearly 900 people. Siben N’Ser wants to be ambitious and bets on twenty new franchise openings very quickly.
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An increase impossible to pass on
The ace. The war in Ukraine will upset the planned plan. “The year 2022 was more difficult, in particular due to the surge in certain raw materials important to us, such as salmon.“, admits Siben N’Ser. The kilogram of salmon goes from 6 euros to 18 euros in one year. An increase that it is impossible to pass on in its entirety. The leader decides to adapt to this new situation. “We have decided to close six restaurants that we owned to lighten our financial structure. To pass this delicate period, we had asked for a spreading of 800,000 euros of social debt that we owe to Urssaf, but this was refused to us.“, gets carried away the leader.
This refusal is not the coup de grace for the company. Approached at the end of last year by a group of investors, the founder of Planet Sushi decided to respond favorably and sell the company. What, he thinks, to reassure the commercial court, which must approve its plan to close restaurants. But investors are unable to provide the financial guarantees requested. Siben N’Ser suspects an attempted fraud. “These potential investors defrauded us and we are going to file a complaint“, he explains. It is however too late to avoid the liquidation, pronounced by the court on February 8th. However, this is accompanied by a three-month business continuity period, until May 8. This will allow new restaurants in Issy-les-Moulineaux and Perpignan to open, even if it is in extreme uncertainty.
This three-month period should allow potential buyers to present themselves. However, Siben N’Ser does not intend to abandon the company he created. He appealed the liquidation. “The parent company, Sumaya, which owns the brands, should be able to exit this liquidation procedure, does he hope. We expect a position from the Court of Appeal by the end of March.If he manages to regain ownership of the Planet Sushi brand, the entrepreneur hopes to convince franchise candidates to join his network. He claims to have a dozen partnership agreements.