After the announcement of the planned sale of the media group and a long silence from all the parties involved, an extraordinary works council, which met yesterday at 11 AM, ratified the decision of the ownership to initiate “the judicial recovery procedure starting next Monday.”
However, the Hersant Media Group (GHM), the current owner of the Nice-Matin media group, has proposed to advance 2 million euros to give the potential buyer more time and try to delay by 2 months a judicial recovery process that has been initiated.
This proposal, submitted to an employee vote by the union organizations during a general assembly, was approved by a majority after a long internal debate. The president of the Nice commercial court will have to decide at the beginning of next week whether or not to accept the proposal from shareholder Philippe Hersant.
If not, the Nice-Matin group will be placed under judicial recovery and other potential buyers may come forward, especially since some debts should be erased.
These are the facts. Saying that all this adheres to Cartesian logic might seem like heresy. Between owners who do not want to invest in their business and investors who buy but do not provide the funds… There is really reason to doubt!
One might think they are at a tango night, and it could even be amusing if 1,250 families were not at stake.
For the record:
The Swiss investment fund “GXP Capital,” associated with former local official Jean Icart, has been declared since February, but is slow to formalize its 20 million euro financing, without providing any real explanations.
GXP Capital, led by Gilles Périn, is present in high-end hospitality and shipbuilding.
The Nice Matin group publishes the daily newspapers Nice-Matin (with a circulation of 90,000 copies), Var-Matin (65,000 copies), and Monaco-Matin. The group also holds 50% of the capital of the company Corse Presse, which publishes Corse-Matin.
