Paris (AFP)

Vivarte, owner of the brands La Halle, Caroll and Minelli, announced on Tuesday "exclusive negotiations" to sell its 230 San Marina shoe stores to entrepreneurs Thierry Le Guénic and Stéphane Collaert, after having sold them in March Chevignon clothes and in August its 75 Cosmoparis shoe stores.

The sale currently negotiated provides for the resumption of all staff and the 218 points of sale in France of San Marina as well as the 12 overseas stores and the website, according to the statement. The subsidiary SMC Services, based in Aubagne (Bouches-du-Rhône), would be bought by Log'S, which had already taken over the logistics platform of Chevignon, Kookaï and Naf Naf.

San Marina would thus have the "financial and human resources necessary to pursue its strategic repositioning," the statement said.

In the spring, the potential buyers, Thierry Le Guénic and Stéphane Collaert, had also bought the Triana group lingerie brand Maison Lejaby and swimwear Rasurel.

For its part, Patrick Puy, president of Vivarte for 3 years, wants to continue "the refocusing of its activities and resources" on its three brands, Halle, Caroll and Minelli, previously put on sale without collecting a satisfactory offer.

Vivarte, which still counted three years ago a dozen signs (Chevignon, Andre, Naf Naf, Kookai, Pataugas ...) will not be able to honor its repayment deadline of October, warned Mr. Puy, in a interview in the newspaper Les Echos on July 12, evoking the activation of a transfer of ownership mechanism to its creditors.

The unions had deplored a "real catastrophe" for the 10,000 employees claimed by the group, likely to lead to the dismantling of Vivarte in the short term, Mr. Puy saying instead that it would be of no consequence on the social level.

The provisional calendar given in July by the leader to AFP provided for this mechanism to be adopted at the end of the summer, allowing to debit Vivarte, but a spokesman told AFP Tuesday that the "legal process" was still going on.

Vivarte had reduced its losses from 305 to 122 million euros, on a turnover of 1.4 billion euros, for the year 2017-2018 ended in August, but the "crisis of" yellow vests "him then lost "30 million euros in sales and 15 million euros in margins," said Mr. Puy.

Founded in 1981, San Marina had achieved 110 million euros in sales in 2018. The announcement of its sale made react unionists, worried about the consequences for its 800 jobs.

Jean-Louis Alfred, CFDT delegate, "fears that they operate like Chevignon and Cosmoparis (...) Vivarte makes a big check to a buyer, who will bankrupt a year or a year and a half later, with employees who will lose their jobs and find themselves on the street with the legal minimum ".

"This allows Vivarte to disengage and avoid the cost of a PSE (plan for safeguarding employment, Ed) or a restructuring," he said to AFP.

For his CGT colleague, Karim Cheboub, Patrick "Puy continues his methodical dismantling of the whole group, which is the road map of the shareholders", with according to him a "same strategy", that of "yielding the entire group in 2021 ".

"We continue to dismantle a group flagship shoe and remove jobs: we're just fed up," insurgent for its part Gérald Gautier (FO).

© 2019 AFP