A hearing at the Commercial Court of Orléans (Loiret) is scheduled for Wednesday at 30 pm. The Sifa foundry, located in the Monte industrial estate in the heart of the Orléans metropolitan area, will file for bankruptcy after two dismal years, fueled in part by the health crisis.
With a shrinking order book and a dizzying 60% drop in turnover in 2020, this automotive subcontractor specializing in aluminum parts for diesel engines had no alternative but to initiate a payment termination procedure. 78 employees who have already gone through such a crisis situation in 2016 held their breath: “We are not blind. Everyone, especially the oldest ones, sees that the situation is getting worse every month,” grumbles the worker, who wished to remain anonymous. And then the end of internal combustion engines, scheduled for 2035, will be devastating for factories like ours.”
State-guaranteed loan that cannot be repaid
This employee remembers what happened just a year ago at the SAM foundry in Aveyron. After several months of struggle, the Commercial Court of Toulouse on November 26, 2021 announced the immediate cessation of this foundry, having forcibly liquidated two months earlier. This site Aveyron couldn’t recover from Renault’s announcement of not supporting the only takeover project being carried out by the Alty Industry group, the current owner of Sifa.
To avoid such a fate, the Loiret foundry showed a desire to diversify its activities by making itself accessible to the electrical sector. Also in April 2021, an agreement was signed with the German manufacturer BMW for the manufacture of electric motor parts. The contract has since expired and has not been renewed. At the same time, orders continued to fall, resulting in a loss of around 1.8 million euros in 2021.
Hoping for a recovery, at the end of the health crisis, the company took out a PGE (Government Guaranteed Loan) that it can no longer meet. There remains a bar of about 2 million euros. “With all these elements put together, who wants to take us back? I’m afraid our fate is sealed. And even if someone were interested, how many jobs could they save? – this employee is perplexed in a mixture of sadness and bewilderment.
Source: Le Parisien
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