Camaïeu: the brand name acquired at auction by Celio

On December 7 at an auction in Vendeville, the brand name Camaïeu was put up for auction by Mercier & Cie, following the judicial liquidation of the clothing brand owned by HPB. After several bids, the men's fashion chain Celio won the lot for 1.8 million euros. The auction started at 500,000 euros.

About ten bidders showed up. The specialized website Interenchères, which broadcast the auction live, estimated the value of the brand portfolio of the women's fashion chain at between 1.5 and 2 million euros. A deposit of 50,000 euros was required to participate in the auction.

With 674 points of sale, Celio, which got out of the safeguard procedure in 2021, will be able to use and develop products under the Camaïeu name. Sébastien Bismuth, Celio's president, was behind the Jennyfer relaunch (now called Don't Call Me Jennyfer), which he had acquired in 2018 with a pool of investors. Alongside historical shareholders Marc and Laurent Grosman, he now hopes to "revive this iconic French brand, known and loved by several million women."

"Many of us regretted the disappearance of a brand we were attached to and which still has many assets. We are excited about the idea of giving Camaïeu a second life so that it can continue to write its history in women's ready-to-wear," says Sébastien Bismuth in a statement.

Before the sale of the brand, 26 other lots were also sold, including new boxes of clothing and accessories (more than 140,000 pieces in total), yoga mats, water bottles, mannequins and even supplies such as boxes and reams of paper. The amounts quickly climbed for some of the lots, in particular for the coats (4,200 pieces sold at 100,000 euros). A total amount of nearly 810,000 euros was paid for the stock.

In the end, the brand's customer database, which lists more than four million people, was not put up for auction by the auctioneer, who withdrew it in view of a breach of personal data, based on the RGPD rules. In a publication issued on December 5, the CNIL recalled the rules for the sale of a customer database, in particular that of requesting the customer's consent for the transfer of the data.

Karine Renouil-Tiberghien and Arnaud de Belabre, who run the Manufacture de Layette et de Tricots (which includes two manufacturing plants located in Pau and Roanne), had expressed in the press their keen interest in the Camaïeu name, but did not win the lot. Their objective was to "prove that a mass-market brand can produce 100% of its collections in France". According to La Voix du Nord, Pimkie and Blancheporte were also in the running.

As part of the liquidation procedure, the warehouse and the Camaïeu headquarters are being appraised for a sale scheduled for later this month. In addition, 1.5 million items labelled Camaïeu with a total value of nearly 50 million euros (retail price) had been acquired in early November by the destocking company Noz, which had paid 3.8 million euros for the stock.

Camaïeu: the brand name acquired at auction by Celio

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