Rocca is awarded management of SNCM

Genoa - In the end, Corsican entrepreneur Patrick Rocca prevailed. Following advice given by the Attorney General, the Commercial Court of Marseille has assigned SNCM shipping company to Patrick Rocca. The Corsican shipping company, whose majority shareholder is Trasndev, has been under receivership due to debts. The court’s intervention was provoked by Transdev’s decision, last year, to no longer extend loans to SNCM that the company was unable pay. The first reaction to the court’s decision came from the CGT labour union, which has confirmed the strike, that had preemptively been planned in recent days, will go ahead tomorrow, Saturday, 21 November. The CGT is very critical of the sale of the company. CGT’s representative for SNCM port-side workers, Jean-François Simmarano, called the decision a scandal: “The great family that is SNCM has been plundered, so now Transdev can focus on Mr Macron buses,” added the union leader, referring to the law that has liberalized passenger transport by road, launched by French Economy Minister, Emmanuel Macron, which has opened the way for Transdev to operate new bus routes between Paris and Toulouse and other cities.

The other parties who had submitted tenders (the Baja Ferries shipping company owned by Daniel Berrebi, the entrepreneur Christian Garin and the consortium Corsica Maritima) have announced plans to appeal the court’s decision. Meanwhile, the competition at sea launched recently by Corsica Maritima, a consortium of 140 Corsican entrepreneurs who had presented an alternative offer, shows signs of faltering. The project involves the creation of two new routes between Toulon and France. In a note sent to the court of Marseille, Corsica Maritima seemed intent that, in the event of a negative decision from the court, it would, nevertheless, have gone ahead with plans to operate a sea link by leasing two ships which would have the support of another French ferry company, Brittany Ferries. Yesterday, the owner of Brittany Ferries, Jean-Marc Roué, who, in recent months, had expressed his interest in joining the board of directors of Corsica Maritima, said his was a strictly personal commitment and has denied Brittany Ferries’ involvement in the project. To put it simply, he’s dissociating himself from his earlier statement, released by the newspaper Le Figaro, signalling that the consortium, which had aspired to compete with SNCM with its own routes, is at the very least, mired in a confusion.

Patrick Rocca managed to secure the award of SNCM through his offer of €3.7 million for real estate assets, the fleet of six ships, and goodwill (€8.9 million euro if you add workers payment schemes and suppliers). Patrick Rocca’s plan provides for maintaining 873 out of 1,500 seafaring and administrative staff. SNCM’s activities will focus on services to Ajaccio and Bastia, with a weekly service to Tunisia, as well. This should generate a turnover of €143 million in 2016 and €182 million in 2017. Mr.Rocca will invest €30 million to upgrade the efficiency of the ships and provide them with a new computerized system. The long term plan is to replace current ships with new ones, by purchasing them on behalf of the Corsican collective, that will become the owner and will, in turn, lease them to the new SNCM. “There is a complete lack of details,” said another union representative, Pierre de Maupoint Vandeul, of the CFE Cgc, “regarding the financing and the conditions of Mr. Rocca’s plan.

What will happen to the 600 employees affected, in terms of compensation to limit the number of redundancies and how are the new 650 employee/shareholders being created to recover their dues? As it is today, this project is built on shifting sand.” The future of SNCM also rests on the European Commission’s decision regarding state aid received by the company in previous years. As yet to be resolved are the EC’s two requests for SNCM to return the funds received, which amount to roughly €440 million. but which increase to nearly €600 million with interest and penalties. Brussels has, however, indicated that the claim will not be pursued provided a clear difference emerges between the old and the new management.