In receivership since May 28, 2024, due to major cash flow difficulties, the traditional manufacturer of supermarket trolleys, Caddy, has just been placed in liquidation with continuation of activity following a decision pronounced, Thursday, June 27, by the commercial chamber of the Saverne judicial court, in Bas-Rhin.
Following this decision, two takeover offers have already been proposed by Cochez, a group specializing in transport and industrial services, and the company Skade Management, belonging to the former owner of Caddy, Stéphane Dedieu. In its takeover offer, Cochez proposes to maintain 15 job positions out of the 110 currently present. The offer concerns the abandonment of “industrial activity, focusing on trading activity and the reconditioning of trolleys”, the judicial administrator, Christophe Gillmé, told AFP.
The company Skade Management, for its part, proposes to keep 42 employment positions, while maintaining “industrial activity and developing a trading activity”, specifies Christophe Gillmé. According to France Info, the former owner of Caddy attached, to his offer, the promise of injecting one and a half million euros, but after the summer.
For his part, Maître Dulmet, lawyer for the Social and Economic Committee (CSE), explained to France Info: “When you are in recovery, it is up to the company to self-finance and therefore pay salaries. Except that there was a lack of cash flow. Placing in liquidation allows you to have the salary guarantee insurance (AGS), it is a way for the company to guarantee remuneration for 45 days for all employees, even without cash flow.”
Caddy’s takeover proposals are “unencouraging”
However, these takeover proposals are “not very encouraging” for Mr. Dulmet. “Caddy stays alive. As long as there is life, there is hope. But the candidates represented will have to considerably improve their offers and present sufficient guarantees to convince the employees and the court,” he believes. He. Note that the two takeover offers will be examined on July 16.
Let us recall that it was in January 2022, for the third time in ten years, that Caddie was placed in receivership. A year later, the company stopped manufacturing plastic trolleys and kept those made of metal, for environmental reasons. Founded in 1928, the company produced, until 2023, 100,000 trolleys on average, at the Dettwiller factory.
