Ready-to-wear brand Esprit placed in receivership in France

The end is coming for the Esprit brand. The ready-to-wear brand has been placed in receivership in France. “The activity can no longer be continued and (…) there is no possibility of presenting a recovery plan to clear the liabilities”said the commercial court of Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine) in its decision of September 9, obtained by AFP.

Esprit de Corp France, based in Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine), was placed in receivership on July 18. “As of the closing date of the last financial year”the company employed 145 employees in France and its annual turnover amounted to nearly 32 million euros, according to the July receivership decision. The brand was then present in more than a hundred points of sale in France, according to its website consulted in July.

The group, based in Germany and listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, announced in May that it had filed for bankruptcy for its activities in Europe, counting on a restructuring to overcome its difficulties, linked in particular to the increase in its costs and the after-effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. The bankruptcy filing concerns the subsidiary Esprit Europe and six other German companies of the group. The subsidiaries in Switzerland and Belgium, where Esprit also has stores, had filed for bankruptcy in March and April.

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This clothing brand was founded in 1968 in San Francisco by an American hippie couple, Douglas and Susie Tompkins – also behind the brand The North Face – who sold their first items while crisscrossing California in a Volkswagen minibus. The founders have not been at the helm for a long time. The group has been listed since 1993. Its headquarters are located in Germany in Ratingen, near Düsseldorf (west of the country). Esprit says it is present in more than 40 countries with 586 stores.