Fort-de-France (AFP)
The mixed commercial court of Fort-de-France postponed to Wednesday the deadline granted to AJR Participations (company of Aude Jacques-Ruettard, granddaughter of Robert Hersant), the main shareholder of France Antilles, to finalize its recovery plan of the only daily newspaper in Martinique, Guadeloupe and Guyana, in receivership.
The court, which must definitively rule on Thursday on the future of the newspaper in receivership since June 25, 2019, left a new deadline to the shareholder "so that the additional elements related to the financial closure are received no later than Wednesday", announced the France-Antilles group on Monday afternoon.
On January 14, the court, which examined the daily's takeover offers, had initially granted a stay until the 27th so that AJR Participations, the only candidate whose offer was accepted, would complete its plan for financing of approximately 7 million euros.
AJR Participations has made a takeover offer to keep 125 positions out of the group's 236, with the publication of a weekly sort in Guadeloupe and Martinique and a digital version in Guyana.
But the shareholder must imperatively find an additional 1.3 million euros, the State having granted aid of three million to add to the other three million euros from investors.
The staff representatives of France-Antilles denounced "a discount offer for employees who stay as for those who leave if the recovery plan was validated by the commercial court".
France Antilles was created in March 1964 on the occasion of the official visit of President Charles de Gaulle to Martinique. The group, a former subsidiary of the Hersant group, has three separate editions, in Guadeloupe, Guyana and Martinique.
© 2020 AFP