Decathlon will pay one billion euros in dividends to the Mulliez family for 2024

The sports brand Decathlon will pay its shareholder the Mulliez family association (AFM), which also owns the distributor Auchan where nearly 2,400 jobs are threatened, one billion euros in dividends for the 2024 financial year, indicated two unions this Friday. “No money for senior negotiations, mutual insurance or NAOs”obligatory annual negotiations, but at the same time “family shareholders take a billion euros in dividends” for 2024, deplored the first union, the CFTC, on its Facebook page. “The CFDT Décathlon is shocked by the announcement this morning in the Decathlon group committee: one billion euros in dividends will be paid from Monday to the shareholders of the Mulliez family association (AFM) for the year 2024 »for its part, the CFDT is indignant.

A source close to management told AFP that this amount corresponded to “to a distribution of the reserves accumulated within the company over time by the shareholders”. “It is distributed to all shareholders including the company’s more than 60,000 employees”continues this source. The AFM did not wish to comment. The announcement comes as another brand in the Mulliez galaxy, the food distributor Auchan, announced a large-scale social plan, threatening a total of 2,389 jobs and including the closure of around ten stores and three warehouses. .

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Request for a commission of inquiry

The CFDT services federation had requested that reclassification proposals be made in other companies in the Mulliez galaxy, such as Leroy Merlin or Decathlon. Leroy Merlin has also carried out a collective contractual termination in recent months at its headquarters in Lezennes, in the suburbs of Lille, leading to the departure of 130 employees, the brand told AFP on Friday, confirming information from Echoes.

L’«empire» Mulliez is not “a group in its own right”more “a galaxy of companies having in common that they are controlled by members of the Mulliez family association (AFM)”explains on his site Bertrand Gobin, author of the book “The hidden face of the Mulliez empire”. Among these brands, Kiabi, Flunch, Boulanger and Norauto. The CFDT also took up the pen this week to ask parliamentarians in particular to create a commission of inquiry “in order to really understand what public money was used for” by the various AFM brands, according to a letter consulted by AFP.