The women’s ready-to-wear brand Naf Naf has been placed in receivership by the Bobigny commercial court (Seine-Saint-Denis), the company announced to Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Wednesday. September 6. The company is in debt, in particular due to unpaid rent during the Covid crisis, while it was not entitled to aid during the health crisis.
“We know that there are going to be store closings, a priori around twenty, and a new [plan de sauvegarde de l’emploi] at the headquarters, who will move »says Angélique Idali, secretary of the social and economic committee (CSE) and CFDT union representative, 87% majority at Naf Naf. “There is enormous concern among employees about the closure of stores, they are waiting for the list. »
“We will do everything to get Naf Naf back on its feet in the coming year. You do not have to [les prestataires] confuse us with Camaïeu and all those other companies that have failed to recover from the crisis in the “retail” sector”, said the leader of SY – the group that owns the brand – Selçuk Yilmaz. Naf Naf benefits from a renewable six-month observation period, “probably twice six months”, according to the lawyer of the SY group, Virginie Dupé. This observation period will allow him “to take very quickly a maximum of measures to rectify the situation”she assures.
In addition to the Covid-19 crisis, the company has been hard hit by “the repeated demonstrations of the” yellow vests “and then against the pension reform”by the consequences of “the war in Ukraine which caused an inflationary shock and soaring prices for energy, raw materials and transport” as well as by “foreign competition whose questionable means of production offer it unfair competitiveness”says a press release.
Naf Naf already placed in receivership in 2020
The French brand launched in 1973 by two brothers and now owned by the Franco-Turkish group SY employs 660 people in France, owns 135 stores and posted a turnover of 141 million euros in 2022, ” growing “, a spokesperson told AFP at the end of August. The company had started to restructure and had cut 35 positions in June 2023 as part of a redundancy plan (or PSE, for job safeguard plan), recalled Angélique Idali.
It had already been placed in receivership in May 2020 and taken over by SY – which employs 1,500 people worldwide –, which is still its shareholder, and which had already acquired the Sinéquanone brand in 2019. “This is the second receivership in three years, so there is a lot of concern, distrust, fear”according to M.me Idali, who hopes to avoid “at most a social breakage”.
The ready-to-wear sector in France has been affected for several months by a violent crisis. Brands known to French consumers such as Camaïeu, Kookaï, Burton of London, Gap France, André, San Marina, Kaporal, Don’t Call me Jennyfer, Du Pareil au Même and Sergent Major… have suffered from the pandemic and continue to suffer from inflation: rising costs of energy, raw materials, rents and wages; as well as second-hand competition.
Some brands, such as Camaïeu, were liquidated in September 2022, with the dismissal of 2,100 employees. Others are in receivership, such as Kookaï or Burton of London. Without reaching that point, still others are cutting back, cutting staff and closing stores, such as Princesse Tam Tam, Comptoir des Cotonniers (Fast Retailing group) or Pimkie.