Translated by
Cassidy STEPHENS
Published
Mar 10, 2023
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Gap France: court-ordered reorganisation, with debts of 5.9 million euros

Translated by
Cassidy STEPHENS
Published
Mar 10, 2023

As requested by the public prosecutor on Monday, the Grenoble Commercial Court officially placed Wilsam, owner of 20 Gap franchise stores in France, in receivership on Wednesday March 1. A chain reaction after the setbacks of the other assets owned by Michel Ohayon, including the receivership of Go Sport and Financière Immobilière Bordelaise (FIB).


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The court, which appointed the same agents and administrators as for Go Sport, specified that the declaration of cessation of payments was made on the basis of a financial analysis showing available assets of 378,856 euros, against liabilities of 26.2 million euros, which in the end were reduced to 5.9 million euros after a moratorium was obtained with the American company Gap Inc (for an amount of 18.6 million euros). 

The deputy public prosecutor, François Touret de Coucy, also noted potentially suspicious financial movements. "A transfer was made by MPI for 1.3 million euros to Wilsam, which corresponds to a partial reimbursement of cash transfers made by Wilsam to this company in recent weeks without any cash agreement being produced. In total, MPI, which belongs to Michel Ohayon, is said to have paid 4.6 million euros to Wilsam."

The criminal investigations in this sprawling case are now being followed by the Junalco prosecutor's office in Paris (National Jurisdiction in charge of the fight against organised crime), which has taken over an investigation for "swindling in an organised gang", paving the way for an extension of the investigations to all of the businessman's companies.

The Gap France franchise was taken over in 2021 by the latter. For several days, its commercial site has been suspended, while the shop in Ternes in Paris will close. The structure, whose director Bérengère Hubner was recently dismissed in favour of the restructuring specialist Patrick Puy, employs some 300 people in France.

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