Just a year ago, with 180 stores, Matras was the second largest bookstore chain in Poland. The court dismissed the company's restructuring proceedings at the end of August, finding that there was no chance of recovery, but it may take a long time before this decision becomes final. Only then could Matras be taken over by an investor in the so-called prepared bankruptcy procedure. Deadlock? Not necessarily. Matras' new judicial administrator has plan B — wants to lease the still operating bookstores to companies associated with the Penta Investment (PI) fund, owner of the book market leader, Empik.
The sanitation of the company should be about healing its finances. In the case of Matras, the process underway since April 2017 has produced the opposite result. Revenues were steadily declining, and the chain was not only failing to pay book suppliers and companies renting its premises, but also ZUS or PFRON. Month after month, it increased its debt by several million zloty.
Today Matras is less than 50 bookstores, where the wind is mostly howling. The website and online store are down. Customers companies exchange information on internet forums about paid and unfulfilled orders, and employees — about problems with the payment of due benefits. This is the situation that the fourth judicial administrator of Matras, who recently became the company PMR Restrukturyzacje, found himself in.
- reports Maciej Roch Pietrzak of PMR Restructuring.
Pre-pack, or prepared bankruptcy, means that a company with problems or its creditors, together with the bankruptcy petition, submit a draft agreement for the sale of the enterprise to a specified investor for a specific price, at least equal to the expert's valuation. As we reported in October, such an application in the case of Matras was filed by a consortium of four companies: Modern Bookstore, Modern Bookstore 2, JT Doradztwo and Mole Mole. Only the last one is known on the book market.
This is an Empik company which, since May 2017, has been developing a chain of smaller bookshops under the Mole Mole brand (it already has 17 of them, including in places where Matras previously operated). Members of the boards of directors or attorneys of the three other consortium members, however, are lawyers from the Komosa Imiełowski law firm, known for having advised the PI fund on many investments, including the acquisition of Empik. Penta itself has been interested in Matras for at least a year.
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