A final general meeting, in front of the 236 employees gathered in one of the huge hangars on the 33-hectare site, in Saint-Martial-d’Artenset, in the Isle Valley. This Friday, April 29, was the last day of Nouvelles Menuiseries Grégoire, once an industrial jewel of the Dordogne. The wood, PVC and aluminum window company had up to 700 employees in the 1990s. The Périgueux commercial court ordered its liquidation this week. Its president, Xavier Palle, took over the management of the company a year ago. Appreciated by employees, he will not have succeeded in redressing the bar in time.
“The closure of this company is historic. Perhaps we have to go back to 2010, when a lot of investments were not made, or not made correctly”, explains Xavier Palle. He arrived after other leaders, who have succeeded since the takeover of the company in 2018 by the investment fund Prudentia Capital, supplemented in part by public capital: “In 2018, the recovery was complicated. Taking over 250 employees with 3.8 million euros in order books, the staff representatives say it themselves, it should have been done with 40 people. We took 210 of them from too much”.
Huge increases in raw materials
“The money that was put in the first years was simply to increase turnover, increase the level of activity, and pay salaries. This money is somehow lacking today, when “we are facing an unprecedented economic crisis”, assures the leader. Price increases began in the sector as early as 2021. “We hear that the unemployment rate which is at its lowest … except that when I fill up my car, I see the price of gasoline, is that not a crisis? We have had increases in materials by 70%, 80%. There is wood, steel. We had an 18% increase for glazing, we only spent a 2% increase for our customers. How do you do it?
“Unfortunately, companies have a 35% increase in bankruptcy in the second work of the building. The second work is us, it’s the electrician, it’s the paint, it’s the carpentry Grégoire probably did not know, or could not, pass this course”.