Mercatone Uno – Shernon aims at recapitalisation

According to a statement released by the UILTuCS union, a meeting was held on 22 February with Shernon Holding to take stock of the situation and check the progress of the plan following the purchase of Mercatone Uno.

The company representatives pointed out that, six months after the due diligence, “considerable problems have been discovered that required the recapitalisation of the company for the amount of 20 million euros, which was signed on 20 February 2019 and will be discussed at an extraordinary meeting to be held on 19 March 2019″.

“The company intends to put in place a new business model, with new references, a reduction of the inventory and the replacement of some suppliers. The operation will take place after 30/40 days at least“. In relation to the renovation of the premises, technical checks are currently underway and should be completed within two months.

Finally, the company resorted to temporary agency workers as a means to deal with the several no’s (106 in total) against the employment agreement proposal, justifying this with the increase in labour costs.

The trade unions, in the light of the problems emerged in the first six months required supplementary information about financial and sales strategies. The next meeting will be held on 5 April in Bologna.

During the next meeting the theme of the second training module on visuals – involving 50 employees – will be also addressed. As for the first training module, the trade unions have pointed out that the waiver requested by the company earlier this month is void and shall be submitted to the employees without penalty or restrictive clauses.

In conclusion UILTuCS, along with Filcams and Fisascat, underlines the problems concerning the payment of termination indemnities before 2006 by the guarantee fund and to the different interpretations of this point by the various territorial offices of Inps: the attorney Mr Salonia has informed that next week the national legal bar will communicate its opinion to Inps. Timely information on the outcome will be given to the trade unions.