After going in receivership on December 4 2024, French footwear brand Clergerie was placed in liquidation as a going concern on Tuesday March 11 by the trade court of Romans-sur-Isère in France, local newspaper Le Dauphiné Libéré has reported.
Clergerie
The judicial liquidation procedure allows Clergerie to continue trading until April 25, and relates to SSB, Clergerie’s production company operating the brand’s factory in Romans. The factory still employs 31 workers, of whom 29 have been put in short-term unemployment, wrote Le Dauphiné Libéré. Clergerie operates a second company, JHJ, which looks after the products’ commercialisation via the retail and wholesale channels, and online. JHJ’s 15 employees are for the time being continuing their activity.
Potential Clergerie buyers have until March 18 to submit their bid, with the next hearing scheduled for April 2. According to the local press, a dozen expressions of interests have been registered.
Le Dauphiné Libéré wrote that Clergerie’s third company, which owns the trademark, has not yet been put into liquidation.
Two years ago, Clergerie was bought by US group Titan Footwear following commercial court proceedings in Paris, having filed for receivership in March 2023. However, Joe Ouaknine, businessman and owner of Titan Footwear, hasn’t been able to revive Clergerie.
The brand was founded in 1981 by Robert Clergerie, and is one of the last bastions of French footwear production. It benefits from a long-standing industrial heritage, since Romans-sur-Isère has been a shoe manufacturing hub since the end of the 19th century. A few other iconic footwear brands hail from the same area, like Stéphane Kélian – owned by the Royer group and about to be relaunched – and Charles Jourdan, also owned by Royer but currently dormant.
