"It's good news but we don't want to get too happy lest it be that..." says Carlos Pitarch on the other end of the phone, a member of the Marie Claire works council and who on Monday was at the meeting to which summoned the company's bankruptcy administrator. There he dropped the news: there is a possible national buyer for Marie Claire, although the proposal is neither closed nor "official."
The idea outlined would be to rescue from the ERTE the 72 people who are still in the company and for whom the deadline ended in March, the month until which the process was extended according to the decision they made in the assembly at the end of the year. So in addition to subrogating the current workforce, reduced compared to what the company had just a year before after the ERE was carried out, the administrator also even talked to them about making "new hires."
The committee evaluates the news "very positively", but does not want to get too excited after the last few episodes. One of them is the non-payment of compensation that the company maintains for the workers who left the company in June 2023, a situation that some workers have denounced judicially and that has not yet been resolved.
In May 2023, the company's management acknowledged that it was "actively exploring" the possibility of finding investors interested in supporting the brand relaunch project. And he pointed out that this operation was due to Marie Claire's "commitment to finding effective solutions to ensure the future of the company and maintain its position as a leader in the intimate lingerie market", not only in the national market, but also by expanding the brand. internationally, after the agreements reached with the publisher Marie Claire, who holds the global brand rights.
Regarding the window of opportunities that opens for the company, Pitarch considers that it is important although it is true that there are different situations, since there are those who gave up and went to look for a new job or those who even moved to another location.
And the Marie Claire viability project is also crucial for Vilafranca, a town where depopulation plays an important role. That is why the City Council was involved in denouncing the situation and requested the collaboration of the Els Ports Regional Association, as it feared that the industrial stability of the area would be endangered and, with it, the increased risk of depopulation in the area. zone.
