“Xavier Niel lost the game. Leave us alone now. » On behalf of the employees of the La Provence group, Julia Sanguinetti, secretary of the social and economic committee (CSE) Corse Matin Publicité expressed all her exasperation on Friday, June 3, during a press conference given at the Old Port of Marseille. Supervised by the presidents of the five other CSEs of the press group, which employs 850 employees on the continent and in Corsica, the elected Force Ouvrière wanted to express “anger and great concern” who agitate “the vast majority” according to her, employees of the two newspapers.
In question, the last gasps of the interminable sales process which has lasted for almost nine months and sees two billionaires clash. The shipowner Rodolphe Saadé, boss of the shipowner CMA CGM, whose takeover offer must be studied by the Bobigny court on June 7, and Xavier Niel, founder of Free (and individual shareholder of the World)already owner of 11% of the newspaper, which challenges certain aspects of the procedure before the courts.
The day before, an extraordinary CSE was convened by the CEO of La Provence, Jean-Christophe Serfati. An appointment to alert on the “very degraded financial situation” and warn of its desire to request the placement of the company in safeguard proceedings if its takeover is not pronounced quickly. Faced with employee representatives, Frédéric Avazéri, the group’s financial agent, mentioned “abyssal losses” and affirmed that the 15 million euros of the two loans guaranteed by the State obtained by the company, had been consumed in eighteen months.
He also revealed that La Provence only ensures its cash flow today by drawing from the proceeds of the sale of its walls, a jackpot of 36 million euros. Me Avazéri also confirmed that the request for safeguard proceedings before the Commercial Court of Marseille “would result in placement under receivership”, and therefore a reset of the sales process. The mandator judges the hypothesis as “imminent peril” while acknowledging that Mr. Niel, a minority shareholder, has made a commitment to the leaders of Provence to “provide the necessary funds to compensate”.
“Discomfort with politicians »
This extraordinary CSE intervened while the sale process will experience a capital episode on Tuesday, at the Bobigny court. At 2:30 p.m., the judge-commissioner in charge of the liquidation of the Bernard Tapie group (GBT) must study in court the proposal made by the shipowner CMA CGM. An offer of 81 million euros for the buyback of the 89% of shares held by the businessman who died in October 2021, which was validated by all the CSEs of Provence and of Morning Corsica, and obtained, under incredible conditions, the approval of the board of directors of the press group on May 9. It is this last decision that Mr. Niel is contesting, who has filed two appeals, the first of which, in summary proceedings, must be studied on Thursday, June 9.
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