“I am happy to be able to announce to you today that GIFI IS MASTER OF ITS DESTINY. » The capital letters give an almost triumphant tone to the email, received this Friday morning by the staff of the Gifi bazaar chain. In this long message, Philippe Ginestet, founder of the brand, formalizes the agreement reached during the night from Thursday to Friday with the banks and its creditors, under the watchful eye of state services. It should lead to the cancellation of part of the company's debts (several hundred million euros) and allow it to embark on a “serious recovery plan”. The terms of this agreement, found as part of a conciliation procedure, must still be validated by the commercial court of Toulouse (Haute-Garonne).
As for the planned plan, writes Philippe Ginestet to his employees, “it guarantees not only our independence, our integrity, but also our anchoring in Villeneuvois”. A response to the fears expressed by the staff who feared, with the multiple rumors of sale, a move of the headquarters, established since the founding of the brand, in 1981, in Villeneuve-sur-Lot (Lot-et-Garonne). More than 700 people work there. In total, the chain has 630 stores in France and abroad and 6,000 employees.
“A brutal slippage”
“Well, that means we're continuing,” said the manager of a store in the Paris region calmly this Friday, who hopes to turn the page on the supply difficulties he has sometimes had to face for certain departments — “ when suppliers were not paid. Behind his cash register, a young employee confides his enthusiasm for “working for Mr. Ginestet”. “It’s a bit like a character in a video game who wins XP, life points, you see? He started in the markets, he created his network of stores step by step. »
But the economic reality is not that of a video game. The last few years have been those of a “brutal slide”, according to the expression of a staff representative. For the first time in its history, the group (which posted 1.2 billion turnover in 2024) recorded losses in 2023 and 2024, weighed down in particular by the failures of a new IT management system disrupting management stocks. In 2024, Gifi called on the Interministerial Committee for Industrial Restructuring (Ciri), an organization attached to Bercy, supposed to help companies in difficulty find a way out of the crisis.
Philippe Ginestet confirmed this Friday that he would step back from the operational management of Gifi, while remaining the main shareholder. The septuagenarian must be appointed president of a supervisory board, while a management board, the composition of which has not yet been announced, will be appointed.
-“A new commercial impetus”
It is he who will be responsible for redressing the situation, with a “three-year strategic plan”, according to the press release published this Friday by Gifi, banking on both “new commercial momentum” and a savings plan.
The CFDT union, the majority within the company, reacted this Friday evening in a press release. Its representatives took note of “a certain number of financial and strategic elements on the future of the Gifi brand” during a social and economic committee (CSE) on Thursday afternoon, of which they refused to give the details. But they still mention “new positive directions for the future of Gifi and thank Philippe Ginestet for his commitment to anchoring in Villeneuve-sur-Lot”, while saying they are “very vigilant and uncompromising as to the consequences on the use of these purely financial agreements.
According to a company spokesperson, the brand's IT setbacks have already “forced it to question its pricing policy and renegotiate [ses] sources of supply”, to put items on the shelves, “90% of which are less than 10 euros”.
Will this be enough to face competition from the booming discount chain Action and that of online commerce? And even more, to the changes in consumer habits since the health crisis: “Before, in small provincial towns, the Gifi store was the Sunday outing. But many are located in shopping centers, which have fallen into disuse,” says an employee.
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