Getir in France, it’s over. In receivership since Tuesday, May 2, the Turkish fast delivery company announced, Wednesday, June 21, to staff representatives, that it was going to leave France definitively on July 31, according to our information.
It is the Getir group – which owns the Getir, Gorillas and Frichti brands – which is withdrawing from France. “All or part of the group in France” will therefore be sold, the company said in a statement to Agence France-Presse. Knowing that only Frichti owns its brand, the names Gorillas and Getir cannot be redeemed.
“A clap of thunder,” according to Johann Tchissambou, secretary of the group’s social and economic committee. “Everyone is knocked out. ” There is something. The day before, Tuesday, June 20, the elected CFDT (majority union of Getir) had agreed to the terms of the job protection plan. “It’s a blow, an earthquake, when we wanted to sign an agreement to help the company and the employees to give themselves the best chance of securing a future,” laments the trade unionist.
“Complex legal environment”
A few days earlier, the Getir group had hinted that it was going to reinvest 160 million euros in its French activities to ensure its continuation over a year. During the weekend, the company had even increased the budget that would be allocated to the social plan from 1.6 million euros to nearly 4 million. This change of direction therefore makes the 1,824 employees of Getir, Frichti and Gorillas, two competitors acquired by the Turkish group in December 2022, fear the worst.
According to certain sources, several companies have already expressed an interest to the agents in taking over the French structure of the group. The company assured that the wages would be paid until mid-September, so that the said legal representatives have time to find a possible buyer.
The growth in the company’s turnover, founded in 2015 and arriving on the French market in 2021, has not been enough in recent years to offset the colossal debt, which amounted to 200 million euros at the end of March 2023. Its main competitor, the German Flink, had also announced that it would leave the French market on Tuesday, June 6.
Getir blames the “complex legal environment” and “regulations imposed by local governments” in its statement for the group’s difficulties. In March, the government decreed that “dark stores”, these stores without customers intended for the storage of goods, were warehouses and not businesses. This change in legislation proved right to the town halls who were trying to curb, in particular through the local urban plan, the proliferation of these sheds in the city center.