The company had been placed in receivership on October 24 in the face of a “cash impasse”, estimated for January and February at nearly 10 million euros.
mo12345lemonde With AFP
Carelide rescue operation, the only French manufacturer of infusion pockets. In the name of health sovereignty, the State, the Hauts-de-France region and the Lille metropolis announced financial support for the northern business takeover, examined on Friday by justice.
The only offer for this company in difficulty had been presented in extremis in mid-January by French pharmaceutical laboratories Aguette and the Delpharm group. The Commercial Court of Lille Métropole must decide during the day on this operation, after a hearing in the morning, according to a source close to the file.
If it is validated, the recovery only provides for nine job cuts, on some four hundred, according to several union officials. The State will “make a loan of 20 million euros and [grant] a subsidy of five million” to support the buyers, announced the Minister of Industry Roland Lescure on the antenna of Europe 1.
“If we want to ensure our industrial sovereignty, we need major industrialists. We have one, which is ready to take Carelide. The state, suddenly, will accompany it,” said the Minister , stressing that the buyer was going to “put 40” million. Carelide mainly provides hospitals, a market on which it is competed by a German group and by the American Baxter.
The company had been placed in receivership on October 24 due to a “cash impasse”, estimated for January February at nearly 10 million euros, the president of the commercial court Eric Feldmann said in November in November . The Hauts-de-France region and the European Metropolis of Lille have announced on Friday that they will submit to the votes of their respective assembly a subsidy of 1 million euros each to safeguard this “strategic enterprise” based in the periphery of Lille.
“Good news” for unions, which remain “vigilant”
Several dozen employees were gathered on Friday morning at the Lille Métropole Commercial Court. Initially providing for the resumption of at least three hundred employees out of the four hundred that the company had, candidates for the takeover should ultimately keep 383, or nine job cuts, said several union officials on site.
Meryam Djidel, CGT union delegate, praised a “good news” after the ministerial announcement. “The stake is to remain vigilant so that there are other layoffs later”. “The state has taken the measure of the issue,” said Daniel Moreia, southern delegate. “We are the only ones to make pockets of infusion and liquid paracetamol in France, and we have seen, with the shortages of paracetamol and antibiotics made in China, the importance of keeping certain productions in France” -il underlined.
m. Lescure also pointed out that Carelide was “one of the last three” companies to produce infusion pockets in Europe. “We had an issue, the hospitals told us, with the ability to deliver, and it is the only company today that makes pockets with pierfusion of paracetamol, so, really we needed,” -It concluded.
In October 2020, in the midst of a health crisis, the government had granted Carelide an aid of 5 million euros – out of a total investment of 12.5 million euros in the company – to allow it to increase its production capacity. The new boost was announced on the day of a meeting in Bercy of health industrialists, to which the State intends to submit a new “doctrine” to promote employment in France, in this sector.
Subcontracting in the manufacture of drugs, Delpharm posted an annual turnover of 1 billion euros in June 2022. The Boulogne-Billancourt group has 6,000 employees and seventeen factories, including eleven in France. Based in Lyon, Aguetant is a specialist in injectable products used at the hospital who employ 500 employees and achieved, in 2022, a turnover of 160 million euros.