San Marina: Chaussea announces the acquisition of a footwear brand that was liquidated in February.

Second Life? Chaussea, a footwear group, announced on Wednesday that it had bought the “brand” of San Marina, a shoe maker that went into liquidation last February. “The takeover concerns only intangible assets, namely the brand, domain name and registered models,” the decision of the Commercial Court of Marseille of May 10 clarifies.

“San Marina has a very broad reputation among the general public. With this acquisition, Chaussea aims to revive the brand like the good old days of Michel Scotto, its founder. “Our first priority is to offer the population high-quality fashionable leather products. In the spring of 2024, we plan to open separate San Marina corners in Chaussea stores,” said Gaetan Grieko, Founding President of the Chaussea Group.

Chaussea has already allowed the purchase of La Halle stores

Chaussea, which describes itself as “France’s leading shoe retailer”, has about 500 outlets and more than 4,000 employees. The Meurthe-et-Moselle-based brand received the green light from the Competition Authority in 2021 to buy 128 of the roughly 500 stores of La Halle, a clothing and footwear chain that went into recovery mode last year.

San Marina was subjected to forced liquidation with immediate termination of operations on February 20 by the commercial court of Marseille, the city where the brand was created in 1981, which ruled that “no serious takeover project can be supported” and that “the current leaders have failed to realize their draft standby proposal due to lack of investor”. The brand had about 650 employees in 160 stores.

Like other brands in the sector, such as André, San Marina, with an estimated turnover of 79 million euros in 2022 but a liability of about 56 million euros, has suffered in particular from social movements such as the Yellow Vests and then from the 2020 health crisis and its aftermath, as well as competition from online sales and inflation.