Advertising distributor Milee (formerly Adrexo), which employs around 5,000 full-time and part-time employees in France, was declared in compulsory liquidation by the Commercial Court of Marseille on Monday 9 September, the management announced in a statement.
The court made its decision “after having heard the report of the administrators and legal representatives and having found that the payment of salaries could not be guaranteed by the companies”Please specify the company address in this press release.
The company was declared bankrupt on May 30, explaining that the advertising material distribution sector, of which it was one of the leaders, is “an area that suffers a lot” with “unpredictable external elements” (Covid-19 pandemic, inflation, etc.) and “whose accumulation is no longer supportable in terms of cash flow”.
This observation procedure supervised by two judicial administrators and two legal representatives was to last six months. But “August salaries have not been paid”“This is a very important step forward for the union,” said Philippe Viroulet, one of the elected representatives of the Autonomous Confederation of Labour (CAT), the largest union in the company, in an interview with Agence France-Presse on Monday. “We expected it, we saw that the cash flow was non-existent”He explained, pointing out that this procedure would lead to the dismissal of “5,000 employees who stayed”.
This lack of cash also prevented the possibility of continuing with the activity or any acquisition projects. “A public takeover bid had been submitted to date without financing, following the tender called by the judicial administrators, which does not allow its future examination by the court, given the impossibility of continuing the activity due to lack of cash”details the press release from Milee’s management.
The advertising print distribution sector has almost halved in four years in France, from 10.4 billion advertising prints in 2019 to 5.7 billion in 2023, according to La Poste, which announced in April the reclassification of its advertising leaflet subsidiary Mediaposte within its employee group.
Milee’s management, which also mentions this market collapse, initially announced a restructuring plan in March involving the elimination of 3,500 jobs. But before it could be implemented, “Losses could not be curbed and Milee’s cash flow was too weak at the end of the first quarter”the management stated in explaining its request for judicial redress.
