The largest employers’ association in the sector is sounding the alarm about the difficulties companies have in repaying their loans.
The extension to 10 years of the repayment period for PGEs withdrawn during the health crisis has provided a “beginning of a response”, according to the president of Umih Thierry Marx (illustration) (AFP / SAMEER AL-DOUMY)
Chef Thierry Marx, president of the main employers’ union for the hotel and restaurant industry, Umih, called on energy suppliers to “do their part” and the government to extend the repayment period for loans guaranteed by the state (PGE), in the face of skyrocketing costs affecting the sector.
“Today our companies are weakened by rising energy and commodity prices: Umih has constantly warned the public authorities about the difficulties our companies are facing at a time when they have to start repaying their PGE,” he said on Tuesday when he opened the organization’s annual congress, which runs until Thursday in Brest.
The extension to 10 years of the payback period for PGEs withdrawn during the health crisis has provided a “beginning of a response” but “is not sufficient”.
estimated mr. Marx in front of an audience of 550 professionals. Using credit intermediation, which is necessary to take advantage of the extension, “is likened to a restructuring of bank debt” and downgrades the company’s rating with the Banque de France, making it “more difficult to obtain new financing”, he developed.
Umih calls for a counter per department for professionals in difficulties
If the government reports a “low number of PGE restructuring files” in the sector with “441 files since the system came into force” and “a risk of payment default estimated at 3.78%”, “this picture was taken before the skyrocketing prices of energy and raw materials, answers today not for reality”, he assessed.
The new president of Umih called for “opening a window in all departments” to identify companies that “will not be able to meet their deadlines” for the repayment of the PGE, and to allow them to extend it to ten years , “without impairing the assessment of the Banque de France”.
Faced with skyrocketing energy costs, the employers’ organization is also asking the government to “review the criteria for receiving aid” from the state: “the shield that limits the increase in energy costs to 15% must be open to as many people as possible,” he continued. “Today it is the suppliers who put pressure on our companies with reckless increases: the pressure must change sides, so that the energy suppliers take their share of responsibility and effort in this crisis”, concluded Thierry Marx. .
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