Circet undertakes to take over 1,049 employees out of 2,300 in the group and its subsidiary Setelen.
The court has decided. The French company Circet was chosen this Wednesday by the Lyon commercial court to take over the majority of Scopelec’s activities and safeguard 1,049 employees out of the 2,300 of the first French cooperative group, placed in receivership at the end of September.
During the hearing on December 8, the administrators and legal representatives, as well as the prosecution, considered Circet’s offer to be financially more solid than that of Newscope, which provided for the safeguarding of 1,457 jobs and was supported by a majority of employees. .
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According to the court judgment, a copy of which AFP obtained on Wednesday, Circet, a French specialist in telecommunications infrastructure which belongs to the British investment fund ICG, undertakes to take over all of Scopelec’s activities with the exception of the area Reunion-Mayotte, from the business branch “uses and services» and the southeast zone for its Gobé and Scopelec Energie Services subsidiaries.
Six potential buyers
Scopelec provided the installation of optical fiber and the maintenance of the copper network for Orange before the announcement in November 2021 of the loss of most of this market, which provided 40% of their turnover. First French cooperative group and subcontractor of the incumbent operator for fiber optic networks, the group had been placed in receivership at the end of September.
In mid-December, the employees had asked President Emmanuel Macron to position himself on behalf of the “sovereigntyin favor of their takeover project. The day before the hearing, political representatives, including the PS president of the Occitanie region Carole Delga, the environmentalist mayor of Lyon Grégory Doucet and the Nupes deputy François Ruffin had called on the State to “take his responsibilities“. According to them, justice had to decide between two “diametrically opposed projects“: those of companies “held by foreign powers», and that of Newscope supported by «80% of employees“.
Potential buyers included rivals of Scopelec, such as Alsatis, Circet, Kyntus, Solutions 30 and Foliateam.
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