“We are the biggest job savers of the Covid period”

On September 28, 2022, Michel Ohayon went from being a skilled Bordeaux entrepreneur to a retail pariah. That day, the Lille Commercial Court ordered the liquidation of Camaïeu, leading to the closure of the brand’s 511 stores and the dismissal of its 2,600 employees. And, in the months that followed, the results were no better for the other brands he had taken over, to bring them together in a subsidiary called Hermione Retail and brands.

One after the other, these businesses have either been placed in receivership (Go Sport, Gap and the 26 Galeries Lafayette affiliated stores), or have been liquidated (Gap), or have been sold (Cafés Legal). A balance sheet that risks weighing in the balance of justice, while Financière immobilière bordelaise (Fib), its main holding company, must be informed of the receivership procedure that concerns it, within a few weeks.

Capital: Are you confident as you approach the hearings scheduled for mid-October, which will rule on the recovery plan for your main holding company, FIB?

Michel Ohayon: I stick to the position I adopted two years ago: I do not talk about the procedures in progress. What I can say is that making yourself sick, no longer believing in it, not fighting is never a solution. We must be combative, resilient, adaptable. We judge people on how they will manage difficulty and failure. This is fundamental.

Aren’t you caught up in your company’s high level of debt?

This answer is forbidden to me today. Very harsh things have been said. I was supposedly for almost forty years, according to the press, a successful businessman, and then suddenly I would be the worst of the worst. Everyone has to sweep in front of their own door.

“It’s true, we lost jobs at Camaïeu. But we managed to save 5,000 in distribution.”

You have still led several companies to bankruptcy…

When we intervened at Camaïeu, it was to save jobs. All these brands represented 7,000 jobs. We didn’t succeed in everything. We can look at the glass as half empty: it’s true, we lost jobs at Camaïeu. But we managed to save 5,000 in distribution. We preserved 2,000 at Go Sport, 350 at Gap, 150 for Cafés Legal, 1,000 at La Grande Récré, 1,000 at Galeries Lafayette… We are the biggest job savers of this Covid period.

You didn’t really save them, most of them ended up in receivership.

Whatever happens, the result is there, even if we then had to sell some of these brands. Before we intervened for Gap, everyone had received their dismissal letter. For Go Sport, Rallye could not continue operating, and there was no one else but us. For Camaïeu, the challenge was heavy, there had already been two recovery operations before we arrived. The company was in bad shape. It was probably presumptuous of me to want to save Camaïeu. It cost us money. During the four seasons that we operated this business, there were two lockdowns and two cyberattacks. Camaïeu, we were only able to give them a two-year reprieve.

You also intervened in these rescues to recover real estate, even very beautiful real estate with the Galeries Lafayette. A way to get rich?

There were no real estate assets in these deals, only business funds. For Galeries Lafayette, it’s different, it wasn’t a collective procedure. I dealt with the Houzé family and I paid a lot, between 100 and 200 million euros. This is the sixth year that we’ve been owners, so it wasn’t a real estate coup.

Investigations are underway into dubious money grabs and vanished state-guaranteed loans (PGE). What is the situation?

These are just rumors. There is no indictment. I claim to be only a shareholder, I have not managed any business. I am passionate about business, but I have hired people to manage, big shots. Concerning the PGE, Junalco (National Jurisdiction in charge of the fight against organized crime, Editor’s note) took over the file because the Grenoble prosecutor must have found himself stuck. There was confusion with a PGE obtained by our predecessor, the Rallye group, a year before our acquisition. You have my word as a man: we have never received a PGE in this division.

You have new projects in Bordeaux, including a tea room called Le Boudoir de Léa, which opened this summer. Do you understand that these announcements surprise the employees of your Galeries Lafayette stores, which have just emerged from the safeguard, who regret that investments are going elsewhere?

It’s absurd, some employees preferred to plead for the liquidation of the company rather than the safeguard plan, but a large majority of people who did not express themselves voted for it. The plan filed with the court, and which has started, is 80 million euros of investment over 10 years. The economic situation is not great, but we are making progress and the objectives are being met.

Next week, find our full investigation into Michel Ohayon, undoubtedly the most elusive of French businessmen.