Reuters: Bankruptcy News: French breeders seek aid as poultry firm insolvent

Reuters: Bankruptcy News Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

French breeders seek aid as poultry firm insolvent Jun 27th 2012, 17:00 Wed Jun 27, 2012 1:00pm EDT * Breeders say need government help to keep poultry alive * Sale of pet food plant eases tension but not enough * Several companies visit Doux plant in Brittany * Takeover bids due by July 2 By Pierre-Henri Allain and Sybille de La Hamaide PARIS, June 27 (Reuters) - French breeders who supply poultry group Doux, which went into administration early this month, have asked the government to ensure they continue to receive feed and gas supplies to stay in business until the future of the company is resolved. The farmers, who need to keep feeding thousands of chickens and turkeys for Doux, fear they may have trouble paying their bills as they await cash from the company, which is struggling with a 340 million euro ($423.5 million) debt pile, unions said. France's new Socialist government has taken an active role in managing the situation as it tries to avoid a wave of factory closures after unemployment hit its highest level since 1999. French Agriculture Minister Stephane Le Foll is due to meet with Doux employees' unions on Thursday. Doux, 80 percent family-owned with the remainder held by French bank BNP Paribas, has contracts with some 800 poultry breeders in addition to the 3,400 staff it employs in France. It received approval from a local court on Tuesday to sell Stanven, a non-core pet food plant, to Germany's Saria. The roughly 19 million euros in proceeds will be used to pay current suppliers. "The situation has eased slightly with Doux's sale of the Stanven plant in Plouray, but we don't know how long it will last, and breeders remain under high pressure as they are asked to sign checks when they are insolvent," said Didier Lucas, head of a local branch of France's largest farm union, FNSEA. Several companies and cooperatives are in talks over a partial or full takeover of Doux, one of the world's largest poultry exporters. Two competitors, LDC and Terrena, are due to visit Doux's chicken slaughter and processing plant in Brittany on Thursday, a company union member said, adding that another competitor, Duc, had already visited last week. Doux's legal administrators said bids to acquire the group should be placed by July 2 at the court overseeing the reorganisation. The poultry firm pledged to pay its bills after June 1, when it went into administration, but it owes some breeders amounts exceeding 100,000 euros, FNSEA said. Doux once paid for all supply chain costs from eggs to chicks, feed, gas, processing, packaging and exporting. But the company's troubles have hurt many suppliers, including farmers who have ceased supplying Doux feed plants, which has created hiccups in deliveries of feed to breeders, Masson said. "Wheat, soybean, mineral suppliers have already delivered hundreds of thousands tonnes that were not paid for," Michel Masson, head of the regional FNSEA branch in Central France said. Now "they deliver only against payment - no payment, no delivery", he said. Farmers also have to pay for the gas needed to heat hen houses, something Doux used to do before June 1. ($1 = 0.8019 euros) (Reporting by Pierre-Henri Allain, Sybille de La Hamaide, Edited by Christian Plumb and Jane Baird) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions