Paris (AFP)
The daily newspapers should engage alone in the takeover of Presstalis, the main press distributor in France, failing to find an agreement on Monday with the magazine cooperative to avoid its liquidation, according to concordant sources.
Daily newspapers and magazines have been clashing for several weeks around the future of the distributor of which they are shareholders, and which filed for bankruptcy on April 20, weighed down by colossal losses. The clock is ticking: a hearing is scheduled for Tuesday morning at the Paris Commercial Court to decide on a possible liquidation.
On Monday, after a final weekend of negotiations, the Presstalis board of directors was informed of the absence of a joint offer.
Louis Dreyfus, the president of the daily newspapers cooperative and managing director of the Le Monde group, proposed an offer from the daily newspapers cooperative, "which would be intended to be extended to publishers of press magazines", he told the 'AFP.
According to a source familiar with the matter, the daily newspapers offer concerns the Paris headquarters of Presstalis and its distribution and grouping activities in Bobigny, in Seine-Saint-Denis. But not the regional stores from which the newspapers leave.
The social consequences could be enormous for the company: previous plans, larger, already provided for the takeover of only 300 employees out of 900.
"Our priority is that there is indeed a takeover offer presented Tuesday morning in court," said Mr. Dreyfus. "Our offer is intended to be improved in the coming days".
Following a board meeting on Monday evening, Presstalis management supported this proposal, qualifying it in a press release as "realistic". The daily plan "allows the Group to avoid an immediate liquidation over its entire scope and the cessation of its messaging activity, with a major social cost", indicates the management of Presstalis.
The future cooperative could not, however, break even without a few magazines, the volumes of daily newspapers having dropped sharply in recent years.
Presstalis calls on all magazine publishers "to actively participate in the discussions over the next few days to finalize an enriched and structuring offer for the sector".
The president of the magazine cooperative Frédérick Cassegrain had proposed to his members to subscribe to a common plan with the daily newspapers, which provided for the establishment, in the long term, of a single messaging service with the competitor of Presstalis, the MLP.
But several major groups have not spoken out, including Prisma (publisher of Current Woman) and Reworld (Closer), preventing the creation of a joint offer and in fact favoring a group departure to the MLP.
"A part" of the magazine press could however accompany the offer of daily newspapers, said Frédérick Cassegrain, also director of operations of CMI France (Elle, Marianne).
© 2020 AFP