Michel Ohayon is at the head of a veritable empire. The Bordeaux businessman, now 61, started in real estate in the 1990s before going into business. In a few years, he bought many brands at low prices, sometimes a symbolic euro, with the aim of straightening them out. But in recent months, the trend has reversed: Go Sportthe Galeries Lafayette… risk going out of business.
Clémentine* works in a Gap store in the south of France. This employee says that the shop can’t even pay the EDF bills anymore. “Since August, we no longer have air conditioning or heating. For two months, we no longer have a telephone to communicate with the outside, since the bills are obviously not paid on time. and on time. We have had no deliveries since last week.. Is it going to get better, are we going to close soon? she wonders.
“We have no answers, we are left alone and it is very stressful and scary.”
Clémentine, employee at Gapat franceinfo
At 60, 24 of whom spent at Gap, Clémentine is very afraid of losing her job… and she’s not the only one. Go Sport employees are in the same boat: the two brands were placed in receivership in January 2023. Unless a buyer comes forward, which is not the case for the moment, some 2,500 people will find themselves Unemployed.
The fear of unemployment for employees
However, when Michel Ohayon bought Go Sport, then Gap, in 2021, he promised to restart sales. The commercial courts trust him, like the employees who see him as a saviour. Today, Clémentine regrets: “I am very angry, he promised us the moon so much, that he was going to fix the stores, buy us more collections… In the end, we are even lower, we are going to be fired at the level of the daisies”she growls.
If the employees are worried, it is because 2,600 employees of Camaïeu, another brand owned by Michel Ohayon, were made redundant in September 2022. Among them, Laurent Gunst. He was at the Commercial Court of Lille when the liquidation of the sign was pronounced… like Michel Ohayon. “He seemed distant, without any questioning of what he had just done to the employees of Camaïeubelieves this 51-year-old ex-employee. I blame him for not keeping his promises, for not investing what he said he was going to invest in the company, and for being more interested in the company’s real estate than in the brand and its employees.”
Michel Ohayon’s business is also of interest to the courts. An investigation has been opened for “abuse of social good” against the parent company of all the brands owned by the businessman.
Real estate project at a standstill
In addition, his real estate investments, which allowed Michel Ohayon to build his empire, are also in difficulty. Marjorie Ledoux learned this the hard way. In 2018, she signed on plan to buy a top-of-the-range apartment, with caretaker, swimming pool and gym, in a residence located in the 8th arrondissement of Marseille. A site at first very late, then completely stopped for more than a year. “I made a denial, says Marjorie Ledoux. I live there, I pass by it every day but I don’t watch it anymore, I try to make sure that it pollutes me as little as possible, since you have the impression of having your life taken hostage.
“All my investment capacity is in there… 280,000 euros!”
Marjorie Ledouxat franceinfo
The owner has already paid 90% of this sum, for what was to be a new start with her son, after his divorce. A broken dream, for which she holds Michel Ohayon responsible: “He’s a financier, so he can play with other financiers, but here he’s playing with people’s lives and with all our savings for some, all our debt capacity for others… Is that what I find deeply unfair and unacceptable”, she growls. Like Marjorie Ledoux, about 80 co-owners are in the same situation, and legal proceedings are underway.
Last victim to date of this collapse: the holding company which manages the three luxury hotels of Michel Ohayon in Bordeaux, Versailles and at the Parisian airport of Roissy-Charles de Gaulle, recently placed in receivership. Contacted by franceinfo, the businessman explained via his communications director that he planned to speak soon, and that he did not wish to comment at this time.
*Name has been changed