The encyclopedia · Sales & Retail · Operational decision · 2023–2024
The Mulliez family sold Pimkie rather than save it — the court plan came two owners later
Fifty years of family-owned fashion, €196M in sales, and losses the owners stopped funding. Sold in 2023; the Lille court's continuation plan came in 2024.
Pimkie · 2024-10-30
What happened
Pimkie was the Mulliez family's fashion chain — the same northern-French dynasty behind Auchan, Leroy Merlin and Decathlon — selling young women's clothes from stores across France and beyond for half a century. By 2023 it was still doing €196 million in revenue and losing money the family no longer wanted to fund.
In February 2023 the Mulliez group sold Pimkie to a consortium — Lee Cooper France, sock maker Kindy and Turkey's Ibisler Tekstil — rather than finance another turnaround itself. The new owners inherited the restructuring: two job-protection plans, in March 2023 and January 2024, covering the closure of about 100 stores and nearly 500 jobs. By late July 2024 the chain was down to 154 stores and 1,300 employees, and it was back in court.
A safeguard procedure opened in May 2024; on 30 October the Lille Métropole commercial court approved a two-year continuation plan — Pimkie avoided liquidation, with projections suggesting liabilities could be cleared and profitability return from 2026. The brand survived because a court gave it time and a consortium gave it a use; what did not survive was the idea that a family fortune would underwrite a mid-market fashion chain indefinitely.
Why it happened
- A family conglomerate owns fashion as a portfolio line; when the line loses, the rational move is sale, not subsidy — the owner's patience ended exactly where the losses did.
- €196M of revenue on a shrinking store base is a cost problem wearing a sales costume; the two job-protection plans were the same cut done in instalments.
- The continuation plan worked because the court could impose time the market would not give — profitability projected for 2026 is a legal artefact as much as a business one.
The lesson
An owner's patience is a line item with a limit — if the plan depends on a backer who can walk, price the walk; a court plan is not a strategy, it is what happens when the strategy runs out of owners.
Sources
- Pimkie, l'ancienne marque de mode de la famille Mulliez, évite de peu la liquidation
- Pimkie : la mode jeune de la famille Mulliez va être rachetée, 500 emplois menacés
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