Sonia Rykiel house to be liquidated
The Paris commercial court ruled Thursday that the Sonia Rykiel house will be liquidated due to a lack of takeover offers.
On Thursday afternoon, after postponing the date for acquisition bids three time, the judges ruled in favour of an immediate liquidation, reported AFP.
Several of the brand's 131 workers who were in court for the decision burst into tears when the winding up order was made, the agency reported. The workers' lawyer Thomas Hollande told AFP that the decision would mean them losing their jobs.
The Parisian label entered receivership in April 2019, and since that time the Paris commercial court had only one bid for the house to assess, according to French daily paper Le Monde. The bid was filed by real estate entrepreneurs Nicole Lévy and Julien Sedbon, and would have ensured that 39 of the 133 employees still working for the fashion label would keep their job, while an attempt would have been made to relaunch Sonia Rykiel as an online brand.
The deadline for filing an acquisition bid for Sonia Rykiel was initially set on May 31 2019, then on June 12, and in the absence of a satisfactory offer, it was pushed further back to July 18.
Among the potential buyers mentioned in recent months, the Etam group, which reportedly withdrew, and Emmanuel Diemoz, a former director of Balmain. In 2012, Sonia Rykiel, based since 1968 in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, was partially sold to Hong Kongese group First Heritage Brands (formerly known as Fung Brands), which then acquired a 100% stake in 2016.
In 2018, the fashion label renowned for its colourful striped knitwear recorded a revenue of €35 million and net losses for €30 million. Last March, Sonia Rykiel parted ways with creative director Julie de Libran.
With reporting from AFP
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