In difficulty for several months, the San Marina shoe brand was placed in compulsory liquidation on Monday February 20 by the Commercial Court of Marseille. “No serious takeover project could be supported and the current leaders could not complete their reserve offer project for lack of investors”, explains the court, which announced the immediate cessation of activity in the face of ” to a situation which it is no longer possible to rectify and [which] worsens day by day”.
On September 22, the company, which employs 680 people in 163 stores in France, was placed in receivership. Candidates for the takeover had until February 7 to present their case, and very few of them came forward. On February 6, Laurent Portella and Stéphane Collaert, shareholders of the company, announced to employee representatives that they were renouncing to present an offer.
French ready-to-wear in difficulty
San Marina, formerly owned by Vivarte, had entrusted in the fall to suffer the backlash of the judgment of the Court of Cassation which forced, in June, the so-called non-essential traders who had had to keep their doors closed during the confinement of spring 2020 to pay their rents. The company had already announced a job protection plan in the spring of 2022.
In August, it was another French ready-to-wear brand, Camaïeu, which justified its request for receivership by referring to “the consequences” of the judgment of the Court of Cassation. The 511 Camaïeu stores definitively closed their doors on October 1, 2022, three days after the announcement of the judicial liquidation of the brand. Since then, several channels have announced that they have been placed in receivership. Among them is Kookaï, also formerly owned by Vivarte.