Europe 1 with AFP 5:18 p.m., June 28, 2022
In the absence of offers from buyers, the Commercial Court of Nanterre on Tuesday placed in compulsory liquidation 14 companies out of the 17 of the Geoxia group, builder of the famous Phénix houses.
The manufacturer employed 1,150 people and achieved a turnover of 252 million euros in 2021.
The Commercial Court of Nanterre on Tuesday placed in compulsory liquidation 14 companies out of the 17 of the Geoxia group, builder of the famous Phénix houses, for lack of offers of buyers for its activity.
The three factories of the company, which manufactured the slabs and frames of its houses itself, obtain a reprieve, the State having decided to finance their continuation of activity to carry out the fallow sites, learned the AFP with the Ministry of the Economy.
Geoxia employed 1,150 people
For open sites, insurers will take over, said Bercy, by recruiting labor and taking charge of late penalties and additional costs.
“They are the ones who will contact the policyholders in the coming days to keep them informed of the next steps to complete their project,” continues the ministry.
"I believed in it until the last minute, it's a bit like the ground collapsing under my feet," Lucy Grolleau, secretary of the social and economic committee (CSE) told AFP. of the company.
The liquidation "is effective immediately", she added, "I have asked all employees to leave their workplace".
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Geoxia, which achieved a turnover of 252 million euros in 2021, employed nearly 1,150 people.
The "major layoffs" plan, which targets companies with more than 200 employees, has been activated, explained Bercy, "to help employees find employment in a sector that is known to be in high demand for labor. ".
A standardized model of individual houses
Created in 1946, the Maisons Phénix group has developed in France thanks to a standardized model of individual house, which is quick and inexpensive to build.
It has become the symbol of home ownership for the middle classes.
He had experienced the first difficulties at the end of the 2000s, which had cut off his access to bank financing.
The rise in real estate prices and the drying up of aid for home ownership, which have kept low-income households away from buying real estate, have deprived it of its core target.
And the group did not manage to move upmarket in time.
The health crisis and then the war in Ukraine, and the soaring prices of materials and energy that accompanied them, dealt it the deathblow.