The Toulouse commercial court pronounced on Wednesday July 29 the judicial liquidation of the Fiber Excellence factory in Tarascon (Bouches-du-Rhône), which employs 270 employees, but has not yet rendered its decision concerning the other factory of the paper pulp group, located in Saint-Gaudens (Haute-Garonne).
The court rejected on Monday, for lack of additional guarantees from the State, the only offer to take over the entire group, presented by financier Matthieu Pigasse, with support from the Occitanie and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur regions. In its decision concerning the Tarascon factory as well as a Provençal branch, the Biowatt SAS electricity production unit, the commercial court pointed to an “irremediably compromised situation, with no prospect of recovery”, burdened by liabilities of nearly 105 million euros, he explained.
On Monday, an industrialist expressed interest at the last minute in the Saint-Gaudens site, where 270 employees also work. The court gave him until Wednesday to make a payment of two million euros, a condition for obtaining a new deadline in order to formulate a takeover offer in due form. This second decision was not rendered Wednesday morning and could be rendered in the coming hours or days, we learned from the court registry.
The State ready to “support a serious offer”
Fiber Excellence employees have been occupying their two factories for several days to put their work tools “under protection”. A “technical meeting” was held on Tuesday between the Ministry of the Economy and the industrialist who submitted a letter of intent to take over the Saint-Gaudens site, as well as representatives of the Occitanie region, according to a source close to the matter in Bercy.
Before this meeting, the Minister for Industry, Sébastien Martin, assured that the State was ready to “support a serious offer”, in particular by increasing the purchase price of electricity produced by Fiber Excellence by 20% and by increasing the supply of wood by the National Forestry Office (ONF).
Fiber Excellence was placed in receivership at the end of April and its two factories have been shut down since that date. After injecting nearly 300 million euros into the group, its Indonesian shareholder Jackson Wijaya threw in the towel in the spring, highlighting the company’s lack of profitability and refusing to invest again.
