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An idea of what happens inside is given outsideBut these attempts at conciliation have failed see belowAn element sometimes underestimated by policy makersThe challenge was architectural and logisticalThe 20th century now belongs to the classics5 in January from December the neverseenIt will also pursue a new loan of an amount of EUR 4It would also secure an agreement with ten of them6 million meters square offices and housingYet most of them would still lose money this yearCable operator UPC-Noos, Arena swimwear, tights Well... Examples of heavy restructuring have multiplied in recent weeks in companies subject to procurement by leveraging ("leveraged buy out" or LBO).
A deep trend "There is not necessarily cause and effect relationship." Restructuring involved during a LBO have occurred anyway sooner or later, said Olivier Elmalek, in charge of the activity of recovery of businesses in Accuracy, a subsidiary of Aon insurance broker, but a LBO requires a performance of the company consistent with the initial plan. Drift, the effect on the financial situation of the company is immediate and then a financial or operational restructuring is sometimes consider.
Even if it is difficult to infer a general movement and employment figures are rather favourable to the capital investment as a whole (see also sidebar), 149 jobs in textile Well deletions (34 of the workforce and the prospect of 300 additional deletions by 2008 with the closure of the plant in the Gard), 160 positions in the Arena girondine plant relocated to China and 792 jobs at UPC-Noos (59 of the workforce)affected by competition alternative telecoms operators, is in speakers no less on a background of increasing Union mobilization towards the actors of the LBO.
In Well, the intersyndicale of Natixis, shareholder through its subsidiary Natexis industry, asked the Bank to "suspend any final decision." Above all, collective LBO, mounted earlier this year by three delegates CGT, has multiplied interventions these past three months, organizing demonstrations before Vivarte stores or the seat of Picard.
A "destructive impact."
"The LBO financial pressure can result in deletions of jobs but also in a more low quality of the jobs created with increased the CSD and temporary workers and close to the SMIC salary," said one of its founders, Philippe Matzkowski, delegate CGT in Eurofarad, who accuses the funds of "plunder industrial and financial".
TDF, the CGT are "a thousand of job losses in France (250 prior to the first LBO and 750 during,) or 30 of the workforce in a painless manner by the replacement of the retirements and negotiated departures, including for employees close to retirement", noted his delegate, Gérard Clavier. "TDF his numbers went from 3.168 people in 2003 to 2.668(4) in 2005 while (Mobiloc and TDF cable) activities have been transferred", replies were in the operator.
Become visible since now on companies more and more important, UNV, PagesJaunes, the LBO also drew the attention of the trade union organisations at European level.
Together there are about ten days in Switzerland, three federations, the IMF (metallurgy), the IUF (tobacco-feeding) and UNI (Union Network International) denounced "the destructive impact" operations to leverage in Europe and called for their "stricter regulation.
This environment is likely to push the funds to more closely monitor the carreer in the business of their portfolios while the success of the LBO repeatedly with great acuteness the problem of wage policy and the redistribution of a part of the added value (see also below).
"Social dialogue works in all the LBO companies", provides, for its part, the President of the French Association of investors in capital (Afic), Patrick Sayer, who began a series of meetings with unions (CFDT, Force ouvrière and soon the CGT).