Le Figaro takes over the assets of Viadeo – Echoes

Christmas story or poisoned gift ? The Paris commercial court comes, in any case, designate the transferee of the assets of Viadeo. The subscriber base, the technology and some of the employees of the company have been taken over by Le Figaro, who would like to create synergies between its subsidiary, classifieds, Figaro Classifieds, and the professional social network French.

The news group, which already has a social network, Buddies before, since the acquisition of CCM-Benchmark, must resume 98 of the 126 employees of Viadeo. He has put on the table € 1.5 million to buy out the service to 40 million registered members, whose influence has declined in the face of competition from LinkedIn, and after several strategic errors.

Six tenders had been filed for the recovery of the assets of Viadeo. None of them exceeded 1.5 million euros.Socially, the best offer came from the Company’s French Insurance Multimedia, who wished to resume 122 of the 126 employees of the company. The management and the company committee had given preference to the offer of the Figaro. The court held that the Figaro was the most likely to ensure the sustainability of the jobs saved.

In the expectation of justice california

Viadeo had been placed into receivership at the end of November. The company was experiencing difficulties for several years, generating, in particular in the last year 23.3 million euros in losses for a turnover of 24.4 million. His adventure in china had dug its losses, the monetization is difficult in this market was never allowed to compensate for the heavy investments that the management of the time had made.

Viadeo had not managed to finance its growth on the markets : its ipo in the summer of 2014, had been a failure. Its market capitalisation was then increased from 150 million euros two years ago to less than 10 million, in the judgment of the rating , in November.

The transaction still needs to be validated by the us authorities. Indeed, Viadeo had transferred most of its assets (database, technology,…) to its us subsidiary, APVO. A priori, the californian justice will not block the operation, but the final decision should fall at the earliest on 30 December, the date on which a hearing is scheduled. Another reason for concern : the verification of the part of the French tax administration, which is investigating the payment of a portion of the VAT of the company in the United States, for several years.