The ax fell for SAG France. The manufacturer of aluminum and steel tanks for industrial vehicles based in L’Horme, in the Loire, has been placed in compulsory liquidation by the commercial court of Saint-Etienne, we learned on Wednesday from union sources.
No candidate had presented himself for the takeover of this company born in 1919, in receivership since October 5th. The French management of the Austrian group SAG had declared itself in a state of cessation of payments “following the stoppage on September 8 of the delivery of our main customer, Renault Trucks (group AB Volvo), representing 85% of the outlets , which had been planned for 18 months, “said an employee representative at the time.
A workforce of around 100 people
The elected CGT and CFTC denounced on Wednesday “the total lack of support from the Austrian parent company which deliberately placed its French subsidiary in difficulty, whose auditors moreover refused to validate the 2021 financial year, because of debts owed by the group”. SAG France achieved an annual turnover of around twenty million euros, with a workforce of around one hundred people, including around twenty temporary workers.
The commercial court of Saint-Etienne has also placed in compulsory liquidation, again for lack of a buyer, Galactea, which specializes in the manufacture of another family of tanks: refrigerated stainless steel tanks intended for dairies.
The company, whose equipment was sold under the Galactea and Nevinox brands, did not manage to overcome its financial difficulties although it had “taken 30% market share in France in ten years”, has declared Yvan Guy-Mercier, the entrepreneur from Saint-Etienne who ran it. Its last 70 employees (it had double it in 2019), who will also be made redundant, worked for the most part in a production unit located in Nevers in the Nièvre.