The French sportswear producer Le Coq Sportif has been positioned into receivership with the intention to reply to “challenges” dealing with the model and to “defend its 330 staff”.
The previous supplier of the Tour de France yellow jersey additionally supplied equipment to the French Olympic Federation throughout the summer time video games in Paris, together with for Valentin Madouas and Christophe Laporte once they rode to silver and bronze medals within the males’s Olympic street race behind the winner, Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel.
Final month, the agency’s guardian firm Airesis introduced that Le Coq Sportif was dealing with “important monetary pressures” and requested the opening of a receivership process with a Paris court docket. Airesis then introduced on Friday that this has now been formalised and has begun.
Regardless of its reported money move difficulties, the guardian firm of the favored equipment model mentioned that it had hoped an upturn in gross sales would materialise within the wake of the Paris Olympics.
“Le Coq Sportif is utilizing this process to reply to the challenges dealing with the model, whereas wanting to guard its 330 staff and a whole lot of oblique jobs,” Airesis mentioned in a press release on Friday.
“This restoration interval can be a possibility for the corporate to have the ability to provoke and finalise discussions with new traders and strategic companions with the intention to perpetuate its exercise and strengthen its financial mannequin ,” it continued.
Le Coq Sportif was the official yellow jersey supplier throughout Tadej Pogačar’s first two Tour victories in 2020 and 2021 on the top of the Covid pandemic. The agency’s cope with the Tour organiser, the Amaury Sports activities Organisation [ASO], ended on the finish of 2021. Italian equipment model Santini took over for 2022 and has supplied the yellow jersey for the final three years.
Receivership is a protecting measure for a corporation struggling monetary difficulties. It’s a formal authorized course of through which an organization’s belongings are taken over by a receiver, who’s normally a creditor, with the intention to assist get better money owed.
In accordance with a report in French newspaper Le Monde, Le Coq Sportif’s first-half monetary outcomes, revealed on the finish of September, present that the agency posted a lack of €18.2 million (£15.2m million/$19 million) in comparison with a lack of €10.5 million (£8.8 million/$11 million) within the first half of final 12 months.
The equipment producer additionally took out a €2.9 million (£2.4 million/$3 million) mortgage from the Paris 2024 organising committee in Could 2024. The report in Le Monde says that the agency nonetheless has €150,000 (£125,000/$157,000) to be repaid.
