Can someone explain how these people who take over the company and go broke anyway, how they make money? It sounds like a scam to me. Also my mom with +40y of working probably wont get haar pensioensmoney. Sounds very.. shifty
Can someone explain how these people who take over the company and go broke anyway, how they make money? It sounds like a scam to me. Also my mom with +40y of working probably wont get haar pensioensmoney. Sounds very.. shifty
31 comments
Simple: U go through the company to see what still operates profitability/has value and sell that off piecemeal. Usually for a bargain to old friends/potential partners who will return the favour in some way later down the line. They see the company as another product to be dismantled and in some ways this is true. A profitable company is (usually) a well oiled machine on many fronts and its parts/departments can be very valuable if incorporated with the right competitors..
“Den een zen dood is den ander zen brood.”
Sorry to hear your mother and your family has to go through this!
Edit: Although “beste optie om zoveel mogelijk jobs te redden.” Sounds like they’re atleast trying to keep on a portion of the staff. So hopefully she will be among those!
Chronicle of a death foretold.
Everyone who has visited Makro in the past 10 years knew it would end in bankruptcy.
The non-food section looked like something from the Sovjet era.
How would your mom lose her pension?
Aren’t the pillars locked from things like this?
the key difference between this and bancrupty is that when you take over a piece you also take over the contracts with the personel. If you want to lower their wages or fire some of them you have to negotiate with the unions.
With a bancrupty all the people would be simply fired. They have to negotiate a new contract with a new employer (possibly the one that bought assets out of the bancrupty)
That she could lose her pension is extremely unlikely. I suggest she gets more information. It is probably more of a “golden handshake” or something else that is nog legally binding.
How would your mom not get her pensionmoney *that has been accrued til now*? It is her savings, on her account, there is no way this is going back to the company. This is one of the most protected salary systems that exists in Belgium (and Europe for that matter). So no way she’s gonna lose money *that she owns today*.
That she will not get her *predicted or projected* pensionmoney because she’s not in service til end-age, that’s something else, and perfectly logical. She’s not getting a salary for the future, so there will also be no future funding for the pensionplan either.
That she looses entrance to a maybe very old and – for the workers – very lucrative pension scheme, and that she will never get the same huge pensionplan with another employer, that’s a shame indeed. But what can you do?
Is this…Belgian Costco?
Sorry I didnt make myself clear, i didnt mean “pensioenmoney” but ontslagvergoeding. And this is her 42nd year, so its not a little. Because when youre bankrupt, there is no money left for the employees
How will she lose her pension money?
There should not be a pension risk. The social security pension doesn’t depend on the employer. In the event of a transfer of undertaking, any entitlement to contributions to supplementals occupational pension funds would pass to the new owner and existing funds themselves are generally through external pension products managed by banks and insurers (so again, no real risks). In addition, collective dismissals are prompted by the sale, bankruptcy or reorganization of an employer, a “social plan” is usually mandated.
In sum, there should not be any real risks. Additional red tapes and formalities only.
They have been doomed to fail for a while now, they sell to much stuff and not even at competitive prices. Sure it’s handy that you can buy pillows as well as office supplies and even food items all at the same shop, but I can’t imagine it being profitable to keep a stock of just about everything all the time.
Pension? Pensions are unrelated to your employer this shouldnt change anything.
As for how they make money: salary for a short while to handle this. Sometimes months but sometimes up to years.
Step in, cut costs, sell portions of the company.
With the money made/saved give yourself good bonuses.
Oh no, the money is gone ….
They’ve been doing this forever in the US.
The people who took over are interested in the real estate. That is where the value is
Wtf happened to Makro. From the retail juggernaut to this pathetic thing.
Makro has one of the worst unions, blocking all reforms and changes. They are a dying breed, not enough shops to be one of the large supermarkets, not special enough to be niche, just an expensive supermarket with a crooked parking, dirty hallways and killed by their competitors.
Ah fucks sakes…
WHile they might not be the best they did have stuff that i liked or at least it was convenient for me to get there as someone who works in the Horeca sector…
I had fond memories of Makro, worked there for several years, literally built it from the ground up(the racks, helped with huge remodelings).
But at the time they only allowed temporary contracts, obtaining a fixed contract was a rarity, regardless of how well your worked. Sometimes in other departments people were able to get it when someone retired, while you were twice the worker they were. And then they had to met me go because I hit a sort of quota of temporary contracts, and the next one legally had to be a fixed one.
Then I moved on and watched the atmosphere in Makro turn to grim.
I see a lot of people talking about the “Membership” thing.
To put things in context Makro target clientelle was Horeca Proffesionals.
People who are Frituur/restaurants/snacks/Cafés etc owners/workers.
The Card was to put your TVA number in the systeme so that you could get Factures for your products in a proffesional use.
They also had other products to attract non-Horeca clients or even simply fo the Horeca pros so that they din’t have to go someplace else to get.
And while 30 years ago it was working(in the 90’s there was a HUGE influx of Horeca proffesionels, lots of Snacks and Kebabs places opened up, but with time MANY have closed or stopped activity) they where kinda doomed , and needed to be more diversified or more robust in ONE aspect, but trying to do the two togheter…nope not gonna work
I went a few time to shopping there ! It is desperately empty ! Not a lot of customers
Hey my mom worked there for 37 years too! Really sad to see it collapse.
“You need a Makro card” really ,mate? I felt back in 1989 , crazy thing is, the full cart had a 4.8 euro difference towards Colruyt !
I hope they keep the workcenter / drive-in. I love that part of Makro. Good choice, affordable, easily accessible.
I used to work at Blokker during its bankrupcy and takeover by Megaworld (and consequent bankrupcy).
They buy a failing company, sell off absolutely anything they can, while using it to shift garbage products they can get on the cheap, pay dividends to themselves and let the thing sink.
In the take-over meeting the new CEO was *bragging* to us minimum-wage slaves about how he managed to get plates at 20 cents a piece in Turkey and was going to sell them for 9.99 Euro.
These people are diseased in the head, and have absolutely no care or feeling for the people they fuck over.
Ah too bad, their gas was always cheaper than the regular stations (at least in the NL).
It’s simple… they pay themselves and don’t fix the financial situation, hence they’re now bankrupt.
Kooiaapjes and that big annual book.
I love their bakery. I’ve never seen another place that sells their sandwiches with chocolate (piotten), which I adore.
When you think that the buyers of Makro, transfered money from them to Makro, you are wrong. These people assess companies like Makro, tell Makro it is going to cost us so much to do anything, that might be liquidating, selling parts, you name it. They mostly offer a better price than liquidating yourself. So in this case Makro paid to get rid of their bad branches, cheap and without the hassle. Now it is up to the buyer to make a profit. Don’t worry, they will find a way.
Tldr: money went in the other direction then you would expect.
My mom has been working for Makro since before I was born and my dad as well for over 15 years now and they saw this whole thing coming from almost a decade ago as well.
Ever since Makro tried to start competing with the big supermarket chains instead of focussing on what made them good (ie. specialist goods for regular consumers & large quantity groceries for parties etc.) it’s all been downhill
Profits went down, temps got laid off and never re-hired, working conditions got worse and then the rona was the final nail in the coffin so to speak.
My sister also had the displeasure of working at their head office for 2 or so years and all that did was confirm to my parents that the whole structure is rotten to the core. Even at the most crucial levels such as purchasing everything is a bureaucratic mess with too few people having to do way too much work while the bigwigs just tell them to shut up and deal with it, they’re not making enough money.
I think we were all hoping that my parents could at least ride it out until their retirement but now it seems they’ll be in that unfortunate position that most older people without a degree find themselves in…
Staff was always friendly imo.
Last time I went was meanwhile few years back.
Empty sections with no lights. Surprised it took this long tbh.
But very questionable decisions: the racks at the entrance chocked full of pre-printed invoice papers… in this day and age, who uses those? Plenty easy to make a personalized one for even a small enterprise, with name /logo on it.
Meanwhile, cursusblokken hidden racks deep.
Why do you think your mom won’t get her pension-money?
Some pension funds are under funded. Typically those with a guaranteed amount at the end.
They use a theoretical return of 6% for each year, and if they dont get it, the company has to fill the gap.
Unless it is bankrupt.
So she will not loose her complete pension, but maybe some part of the private part…