The deadline granted for takeover bid to the French automotive foundry MBF Aluminium in Saint-Claude (Jura) which has been in receivership position since 4th November’20, has been postponed from 20th January to 9th February by the Dijon commercial court.
In the recent weeks, four interested candidates came to visit the facility site, while no takeover proposal came up as of yet, but two letters of intent have been submitted. One from the American group Seiko, which would retain only 167 of the 266 employees, the other from the French competitor GMD, which took three more weeks to build its own.
Adeline Munarolo, Director General, MBF Aluminium said: “By GMD's admission, it was the government that supported their visit.”
The study by the Roland Berger firm suggested that the French sector reorganize itself around a few hexagonal champions, including the GMD group.
The specialist in pressure injection for the automobile, which still had 800 employees in the 2000s, was taken over by the CMV holding company in 2012. The shareholder had injected €14 million between 2017 and 2019 to be able to manufacture clutch housings for Renault hybrid vehicles (18% of activity, 37% for PSA), but due to dieselgate, the market did not take off until summer 2020, more than a year late.
MBF has seen its debt soar with this production lag, a debt which has grown even heavier with the health crisis. The 2020 turnover plunged to €30 million, against €36.5 million in 2019, and the denunciation of the moratorium on the tax and social debt of € 7 million by the General Directorate of Public Finance, on 9th October ‘20, had placed it in bankruptcy.
"It is the State which has switched MBF into receivership, while the company has never been able to benefit from subsidies", deplores Nail Yacin, CGT delegate of the site who also denounces the strategic choices of the shareholder and builders, "who have not played the game of volumes".
CMV nevertheless wants to stay in the race and takes advantage of the additional time to refine its continuation plan. Its leaders are increasing contacts in France and abroad - particularly in the Middle East. "The social criterion will be decisive in this basin", assures Adeline Munarolo, who estimates that with a workforce reduced by half, as recommended by the Berger study for MBF, the plant could no longer run.
source https://www.alcircle.com/news/french-automotive-foundry-mbf-aluminium-takeover-bid-postpones-to-february-9-62391
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