Geodis yesterday improved its offer for insolvent French parcels firm Sernam and looks set togain court approval for its planned acquisition on Friday (April 13).
The SNCF logistics subsidiary raised its previous offer of just €50,000 for the heavilyloss-making company to €500,000, CEO Pierre Blayau told French media. Sernam’s management announcedthat the two offers presented jointly by Geodis and its associate BMV, had been increased to atotal value of €750,000 and the total number of jobs saved would be increased to 831.
The Nanterre administrative court, which has had legal control of Sernam since January, said itwould review the updated offer and announce a decision on Friday.
Blayau also denied he had been under political pressure over the deal. But French presidentNicolas Sarkozy, who is campaigning for re-election later this month, told radio station FranceInfo that the government had intervened “to ensure Geodis takes over Sernam” and thus save 850 jobsat the insolvent company.
Geodis plans to take over 826 of the 1,600 jobs at Sernam along with the customer base anddiverse assets as of May 7, and would integrate the business into Geodis Calberson. The Sernambrand, its network, commercial alliances and the remaining 800 jobs would disappear.
On April 6 Sernam had admitted that its daily revenues had dropped 21% as of March 31 butstressed this figure had to be seen in the context of lower volumes for the whole market.
The way was cleared for the acquisition when the European Commission last week backed down overa €642 million state aid repayment decision. Geodis had made its offer for Sernam conditional onnot being forced to make the repayment which the European Commission ordered last month in a casecovering state aid payments from the mid-2000s. The Commission accepted that any investor in Sernamwould not have to bear responsibility for repaying the state aid to the French government due to alack of “economic continuity” between the company before and after the planned sale.
Sernam, with revenues of €298 million in 2011, was declared insolvent at the start of this yearand given six months to find a buyer. It has been loss-making for several years.
