Caddy, on the verge of bankruptcy, is looking for a buyer. Employees are still waiting for their December salary

A “caddy”: the name sounds English but it is a French manufacturer behind . The latter, in suspension of payments, announced this Tuesday hoping to find a buyer to be able to break the deadlock. The group was also placed in receivership in the wake of this declaration on Tuesday.

If the manufacturer of supermarket trolleys has succeeded in winning in the past, to the point where the word “caddy” has become a common name in France and even in Belgium, times are getting harder.

The figure business fell from 22 to 17 million euros between 2019 and 2020 and the health crisis linked to Covid-19 has not helped sales. An exporting group, Caddie has also suffered from the explosion in commodity prices as well as supply chain disruptions.

“ To date, no one has come forward, but we are just at the very beginning of the procedure and for me it is obvious that a beautiful house like Caddy will inevitably attract an industrialist “, said CEO Stéphane Dedieu on RMC.

The company based in Dettwiller, in Alsace, has declared Monday in suspension of payments because of an accumulation of difficulties which exhausted its cash. A hearing is due to take place this Tuesday morning in front of the commercial chamber of the judicial court of Saverne (Bas-Rhin) to determine the conditions for his bankruptcy.

In addition, a cluster was declared in the company last year and disrupted production, we learn on Les Echos .

140 employees are still awaiting their December salary

A single “ pass “for Stéphane Dedieu, who claims to have reorganized the industrialization process and to have” a lot of arguments to be able to continue with a new buyer “.

In the meantime, the approximately 140 employees of the company, who have not yet been paid for the month of December, “ will be paid this week (…) normally on January 7, thanks to the guaranteed wages insurance” , he argued.

The boss of the company called “Les Ateliers Reunis Caddie”, who invented in 1928 the metal trolley for supermarkets, admitted that it was used less and less in Europe due to changes in the habits of consumers but there was still a product “ necessary “. “ You can’t sell without a cart, so I still believe in a take-back ,” he said.

The “Caddy” brand has grown with the rise of the consumer society, before undergoing two legal reorganizations, in 2012 and then in 2014. But the group escaped bankruptcy.

In the summer of 2020, the company 70% owned since 2018 by the Polish Damix had cut fifty jobs and regrouped its trolley production activities for mass distribution on the only French site of Dettwiller.