The future of San Marina will be sealed on February 20 but the “cold shower” has already passed for the employees of the shoe brand. “We know very well that we are going to liquidation, there is no longer any hope of recovery”, breathes Christine Dalmasso, 28 years of seniority in the company, who climbed the ladder to become store assistant in La Valette, near Toulon. Like the more than 600 employees in France, she learned on Monday that the two shareholders were abandoning their offer to take over 49 stores, out of the 163 in the group, for lack of funding.
And this Friday’s hearing at the Commercial Court of Marseille – the company’s headquarters is in Gémenos (Bouches-du-Rhône) – drives the point home a little more. The ten offers of takeovers presented would hardly have convinced, in particular on the too limited number of stores and jobs saved. “All agree, between judicial administrators and employees, that they are inadmissible,” said AFP Helmi Farhat, secretary of the social and economic committee.
For the time being, as long as the court has not rendered its deliberation, the activity of San Marina and its stores continues normally. “I started looking elsewhere,” says Deborah Basquin, 42 years old and seven years with San Marina. But the heart is a little heavy: “My store is not part of the PSE already committed, it is not loss-making. We have not suffered a decline in turnover, we have met last year’s objective. “While the store in downtown Metz had to close in December, that of Deborah, bright and located in the Waves Actisud shopping center on the outskirts, held up well. Despite the deliveries which were delayed when the receivership was announced in September: “The carriers have blocked. When we receive the boots in December, it’s too late. »
” Move of mercy “
She regrets the “lack of risk” in the collections and also the “bad choices”, such as the discontinuation this season of the Galicia pump with the very comfortable slipper, a classic of the house. “All our customers adored him, we had brought him up, but we never listen enough to the field. “But the coup de grace was the decision of the Court of Cassation to charge all the Covid rents,” she believes. In the South, his colleague Christine Dalmasso also points to “a management of the company and the collections that are not there”. “Basically San Marina, it’s a brand with good value for money, quite popular, we were a hit,” she recalls. There is a more modern turn that has not been taken. We lost customers. »
Both also tell of the habits that have changed with online commerce and low-cost competition. “It’s a French brand that has existed since 1981 and was part of the landscape of footwear, what hurts is that it will no longer exist,” they each say, miles apart. Elected from the staff, they are preparing to accompany the liquidation process, which is probably to come. At 50, Christine Dalmasso then definitely wants to turn the page on trade. Her voice is moved when she recalls all those years spent at San Marina, where she entered with a contract of a few hours. She took her small children to the store when they were sick, “when it was still possible. “. The future ? “It will always be in the relational, but in the care, she confides. I’m thinking of becoming a nurse’s aide. »