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- 1. Le château de La Barben
Photo : Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
Rocher Mistral and Vianney d’Alançon have just been condemned, at first instance, by the Aix-en-Provence court for unauthorised work carried out at the Château de La Barben (ill. 1; see articles). It is interesting to read the judgement. While the defendants were acquitted of the "offence of unauthorised interference with the conservation of the natural habitat of a protected species", they were convicted on all the other charges:
– Carrying out work or using land in disregard of national planning regulations,
– Carrying out work not authorised by a building permit,
– Illegal creation or modification of a public space or road in the vicinity of a historic monument,
– Unauthorised new construction subject to prior authorisation in the vicinity of a historic monument,
– Carrying out work without prior authorisation on a building protected as a listed monument,
– Carrying out work on a listed building without prior authorisation,
– Unauthorised construction of a parking area, vehicle storage area or caravan or mobile home park,
That’s quite a lot, not to mention the fact that other potential offences have - for the moment - not been the subject of proceedings, notably those concerning the interior of the château (see this article).
As a result, SAS Rocher Mistral has been fined €70,000 and Vianney d’Alançon €20,000. Above all, they were ordered to return the premises, in particular the former vegetable garden (ill. 2) and the gardens, as well as the two landscaped car parks. In addition, the elements of the "living base", i.e. the prefabricated buildings designed to house the employees, must be removed. As the convicted persons have announced that they will appeal, the latter has suspensive effect, which will allow the park to open for a new season that we firmly hope will be its last.
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- 2. L’ancien potager, transformé en champ de foire, qui doit être remis en l’état
Photo : Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
Because in addition to the legal troubles, SAS Rocher Mistral is clearly facing serious financial problems. Although the accounts for 2023 are not yet available, those for the site’s first two years of operation, 2021 and 2022, show a (very) negative operating result each time: 5.4 million in 2021 and 6.1 million in 2022 (it was already negative by 1.3 million in 2020...). While in 2021, public subsidies and exceptional income reduced the losses to "only" €2.5 million, this windfall fell sharply in 2022, despite a further subsidy from the Region, and the loss that year was €6.4 million.
As there is no reason why these losses, which are structural in the current state of the project, should have been much lower in 2023, the coffers obviously need to be bailed out, which is why several capital increases were decided on in January 2024.
The first capital increase involved the issue of 55,600 shares with a unit value of €126, including a €10 nominal value and €116 in share premium, for a total of €7m; It is interesting to note that this capital increase was entirely financed (by all the shareholders except Vianney d’Alançon) through a waiver of receivables, which means that no additional money was brought into the company, and that these receivables will never be repaid since they were converted into shares at a nominal value of only €556,000, the remainder (€6,450,000) corresponding to a share premium, i.e. the value at which the shareholders estimate the real price of these shares.
As losses have to be made good, a second capital increase was decided on just after the first, this time providing for the issue of 10,700 new shares, on the same terms as the previous one (i.e. €10 nominal value and €116 share premium), for a total of €1,348,200. It seems (we have not been able to confirm this) that this capital increase, this time involving the same partners (with the exception of Ricardo Ranch, owned by the Deniau family), was made in cash, which is necessary, as we said, to avoid insolvency.
A third capital increase is even envisaged, this time solely by Financière du Steir, a more recent partner, and must be completed within three months of January 25, i.e. before April 25. Will this take place despite the conviction of Rocher Mistral and Vianney d’Alançon? We don’t know: Jean-Pierre Dréau, Chairman of Financière du Steir, has not replied to us. Unfortunately, we did not get any more answers to our questions from Vincent Montagne (Michelin family), as he is currently away on business, or from Benoît Habert (Dassault family), as none of our attempts to contact him were successful.) This is a shame, because both the Michelin and Dassault families are patrons of French heritage, via their foundations. How can they donate money for the restoration of historic monuments and at the same time participate in the vandalism of a historic monument? We would have liked to understand.
Finally, for those who are surprised that a company that seems to be in such bad shape should be valued at such a high level (116 euros in share premium for 10 euros in nominal value), the auditor, which is rather unusual in this type of operation, did not want to commit himself to this amount. He explained that "the issue price of the shares was the result of negotiations between the partners. As a result, the Chairman did not include in his report the choice of calculation elements used to set this price and its amount, with the justification provided for by the laws and regulations". One might think that it would be difficult to justify such a price for such a company, with so much debt and such results. And it is surprising that, despite the legal and regulatory obligation (this is the statutory auditor speaking), the justifications for the issue price were not provided. But no doubt Vianney d’Alançon, who after these various operations is now a very small minority shareholder (he now owns only 6.8% of the shares), will ask for the situation to be regularised?