The advertising distributor was placed in receivership by the Marseille commercial court on Monday, September 9. The French company, which has around 5,000 employees, has been hit hard by the sector’s crisis.
It is one of the leaders in a little-known market, and yet present almost every day in our mailbox. Milee, a company distributing advertising leaflets, was placed in receivership on Monday, September 9, management announced in a press release. The company has approximately 5,000 full-time or part-time employees in France.
Milee, previously known as Adrexo, had already been placed in receivership on May 30. Management explains that the advertising print distribution sector is “a field in great suffering» with «unpredictable external elements” like Covid and inflation. For them, this “accumulation is no longer sustainable in terms of cash flow“This observation procedure supervised by two judicial administrators and two legal representatives was to last six months.
A shortened procedure because “August salaries have not been paid“, stressed Philippe Viroulet, one of the elected representatives of the Autonomous Confederation of Labor (CAT), the majority union within the company, on Monday.We expected it, we saw the cash flow becoming non-existent“, he commented, specifying that this procedure will lead to the dismissal of “5,000 employees remaining».
Empty coffers which also prevented the possibility of continuing the activity or any takeover project: “An unfunded takeover bid to date had been submitted, following the call for tenders launched by the judicial administrators, thus preventing its future examination by the court given the impossibility of continuing the activity in the absence of cash.“, details the press release from Milee’s management.
No takeover plans at present
The advertising print distribution sector has almost halved in four years in France, going from 10.4 billion advertising prints in 2019 to 5.7 billion in 2023, according to La Poste, which for its part announced in April the reclassification within the group of employees of its advertising leaflet subsidiary Mediaposte.
Milee, who also discusses the market collapse, had initially announced a restructuring plan in March that would see 3,500 job cuts. But before it could be implemented, “Losses could not be contained and Milee’s cash position was too weak at the end of the first quarter“, the management had declared to explain its request for judicial recovery.
