The Cochez group, current owner of Caddy, and the company’s former owner Stéphane Dedieu have each submitted a takeover offer for the iconic trolley manufacturer.
Two takeover offers from the famous Alsatian manufacturer of supermarket trolleys, Caddy, have been submitted, AFP learned on Thursday, with the fate of the company remaining uncertain. “Management announced in the CSE this morning that there were two offers,” Me Pierre Dulmet, lawyer for the Social and Economic Committee (CSE), told AFP.
The current owner, the Cochez group, based in Valenciennes (North) and specialized in transport and industrial services, has announced an offer. This plans to keep 15 of the 110 employees and not 40 as he proposed on Tuesday.
Stéphane Dedieu, former owner of Caddy, also submitted an offer which would take on 42 employees, “with two particularities: one, he describes that he has no financing. And two, that if he takes over, it is not only from September,” explained Me Dulmet. A deadline that seems distant because Caddy is short of cash.
Liquidation with or without continuation of activity?
The receiver on Tuesday asked the commercial chamber of the Saverne (Bas-Rhin) judicial court to convert the receivership, pronounced on May 28, into liquidation with continuation of activity. The buyers had until Wednesday evening to submit their offers.
The court is due to deliver its deliberations on Thursday. It could decide on an immediate liquidation or a liquidation with continued activity, while it analyzes these two offers.
Name registered in 1959 and inspired by golf, Caddie, whose industrial and Alsatian origins date back to 1928 with wire products, had its moment of glory with the rise of the consumer society, inseparable from the metal trolley for supermarkets, before encountering difficulties.
Already on the verge of liquidation, Caddy was taken over in 2022 with the help of public funds by Cochez. In May 2023, the company announced that it would stop producing plastic supermarket trolleys, highlighting environmental concerns.
