They are obviously not profitable. The Galeries Lafayette group plans to close its two stores in Marseille by the end of 2025, which have “recorded recurring losses for several years”, and promises to “encourage the reclassification of the 145 employees concerned”. The losses of the two stores located in Center Bourse and in the Prado shopping center, very close to the Vélodrome stadium, “have weakened their financial situation, despite the significant investments which have been dedicated to them to revive their attractiveness”, detailed the company in a press release published Tuesday.
The group has 57 stores in France, including 19 directly owned and 38 operated by franchise partners. “This situation is no longer tenable today so as not to unbalance the performance of the rest of the French Galeries Lafayette network, which is part of a dynamic of positive and buoyant activity, and in which the company must continue to invest,” the group further argues.
Support for affected employees
The general director Nicolas Houzé, quoted in the press release, assured that he had initially “looked for [solutions] possible alternatives” to a closure, but having “not found the premium location and space size that corresponds to [leurs] expectations” to stay in Marseille. This “in no way calls into question our conviction of the relevance of the department store model in the heart of provincial towns, and we remain determined to grow our stock over the coming years,” he said again, assuring that he wanted to support “the Marseille employees concerned as much as necessary.
-The Galleries suffered from the Covid-19 epidemic, which permanently deprived them of a large part of their clientele and forced them to keep their doors closed for long periods. In mid-December, the online private sales site BazarChic, owned by Galeries, launched a “cessation project” which would threaten around a hundred jobs according to several media outlets, unless a buyer was found.
The group, whose flagship is located on Boulevard Haussmann in Paris, also sold another emblematic Parisian department store at the end of 2023, the Bazar de l'Hôtel de Ville (BHV), to a small real estate company named Société des grands stores (SGM). ). Concerns had emerged during the summer of 2024 about the financial health of the BHV, but management wanted to be reassuring at the start of the school year.
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