The Lille commercial court validated, Wednesday March 20, the takeover of Valdunes, the last French manufacturer of train wheels, by the Europlasma group, with the support of the State, reported the employee unions and management. of the company. “The takeover proposal by Europlasma is accepted with entry into possession on March 21,” declared Guillaume Ferrand, representative of Valdunes management. This validation was also confirmed by the unions at the end of the hearing.
The President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, pledged to “fight until the last quarter of an hour for Valdunes”, erected as an emblem of French industrial sovereignty, after the announcement, in May 2023, of the disengagement of Chinese shareholder MA Steel.
Only one offer was ultimately made, that of Europlasma, a group built around waste recovery, which has taken over several companies in difficulty in recent years. According to La Voix du Nord, only 118 employees of the Trith-Saint-Léger factory (North) and 66 employees of the Leffrinckoucke forge (North) must keep their jobs, therefore leading to the dismissal of 125 people out of the 309 employees of the two Valdunes sites.
Government support
Such an operation would be impossible without the support of the government, which is very involved in the matter, with Europlasma presenting a turnover of only 14.5 million euros, compared to 68.4 for the historic manufacturer of train wheels and axles. , metro and tram. According to Bercy, Europlasma will provide 15 million in equity over three years, the State up to 15 million in the form of a loan and local authorities up to 4 million in land financing and 1 million in grants.
“What is important is not to know if David buys Goliath, it is to know if we are capable of providing something sufficiently structuring for Goliath to become Goliath again,” explained the chairman and CEO of Europlasma, Jérôme Garnache, leaving a hearing before the commercial court at the end of February. “If we didn’t have this certainty of being able to do it, we wouldn’t be here,” he insisted. The group intends to “transform the economic model” of Valdunes to “produce green wheels using green steel and green energy”.
“The State really needs to be there to monitor investments,” warns the CGT delegate and secretary of the social and economic committee, Maxime Savaux. “If it happens like the Forges de Tarbes [acquired in 2021 by Europlasma], where they promised investments and they apparently don’t make them, it’s going to be complicated, but we also have to give Europlasma a chance. »
“Before the Chinese, it was the Germans: this company was pillaged, siphoned off, to arrive at today’s situation where we have a so-called benefactor,” annoys the CGT leader -Métallurgie du Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Ludovic Bouvier, stressing that Europlasma will receive “more than its turnover in subsidies”, while 125 employees will remain out of work.