What is the extent of the damage at Biscochoc?
The old Ducos factory burned to the ground, representing around three billion francs in damage, including walls, equipment, stocks, etc. Then on the new factory (in Nouville), the damage is estimated at around 100 million francs since the entire interior burned: what we had already installed must be redone. But as everything has to be restarted, the damage is between 800 million and a billion additional francs at this level.
In terms of economic activity, I employed around 80 people, including 65 permanent workers. So everyone is at a standstill for the moment.
What are your current concerns, particularly with your employees and suppliers?
In the industry, we do the splits in a way, since we receive merchandise that has been ordered for which we pay between 15 days and a month (in advance) depending on the agreements. It then takes two months to arrive by boat, then we work on it and sell it and it is only after all these steps that we get paid. This represents a cash delta spread over at least six months. So obviously, it’s not easy to manage. And today, we no longer have any money coming in at all and therefore the cash flow is collapsing very quickly. This is the first concern.
As far as salaries are concerned, I had made the decision to pay them anyway until the end of May, but for the rest, we are sailing on sight for the moment. And this is the fight we are starting today because insurance companies are starting to decide who is important and who is not for society. But I maintain that all my blue-collar workers are very important to my business. They are machine specialists and there are very few of them in the region, so I don’t want to lose them and I don’t want them to find themselves unemployed, earning almost nothing while they have salaries that are just decent at home. That’s the whole point today.
Are you counting on specific unemployment, as was done for the nickel sector, precisely in order to avoid a skills drain?
For the moment, we only have scraps of information around unemployment for a period of 9 months on a decreasing basis, with an amount between 75% and 100% of the SMG, if I understood correctly, which represents nothing.
We will no longer restart the Ducos site, it’s over.
Exactly, what are your ambitions: to get back on track or to give up?
We have a total lack of visibility from both the New Caledonian government and the French state. For my part, I am in a very special case because my project (a new factory in Nouville) is subject to double tax exemption so I am simply obliged to continue it. It is certain that if I was not under this double tax exemption, I would have asked myself the question of stopping since all my loans are paid. But it would be cruel because it would put 80 employees on the ground. I think today, many business leaders are in this state of mind.
The Biscochoc factory in Ducos was completely destroyed by flames. Photo Anthony Tejero
When can you expect to resume activity?
There are incompressible deadlines. In other words, Biscochoc will not be able to resume operations for at least a year for the Nouville site. As for the Ducos site, we will no longer restart it, it’s over.
What are the repercussions of this stoppage internationally, particularly in Vanuatu where you are based?
Obviously in Vanuatu, I have to find my production elsewhere since Biscochoc was the biggest customer of our farm there. This also has a double impact on exports since I had just signed two contracts with China and Japan, i.e. around 120 tonnes of exports out of a volume previously of 450 tonnes. These contracts should have represented 25% more turnover which has just fallen through. To get them back, it’s going to be complicated because we’ve been fighting for three years to be present on these markets. It’s just terrible.
