The NOVASCO metallurgist, which employs some 760 employees in Lorraine in France, in the Loire and the North, was placed on Monday in receivership by the Strasbourg Court, which set at the end of September the deadline for the deposit of recovery projects.
The ex-ascumetal, which manufactures special steels, especially for the automotive sector, had been taken over in July 2024 by the British investment fund Graybull Capital. The latter has not injected the 90 million euros promised alongside the State, which brought 75 million euros to the company. At the end of the agreement passed a year ago with Graybull, the State paid 75 million euros and 10 million are expected in the second half of August, according to Yann Amadoro.
“Hold until the end of September at the beginning of October”
The Commercial Chamber of the Strasbourg Judicial Court “acted as a receivership and fixed the deadline for filing takeover offers in the last week of September,” said Yann Amadoro, CGT secretary of the Social and Economic Committee (CSE). The calendar “constrained by the group’s level of the group” has not made it possible to set up a six-month observation period, he added. “The cash flow allows today to hold until the end of September at the beginning of October,” he added.
Applicants for the takeover have already been interviewed in July, some would have views of certain sites, but not on the principal, Hagondange, which employs 450 people in Moselle. With its three other machining and completion sites, in Custines (Meurthe-et-Moselle), Saint-Étienne (Loire) and Leffrinckoucke (North), Novasco employs around 760 people.
