Sophia : Aucland is restructuring and is looking for buyers.

It is one of the leading companies of the new economy on the French Riviera which also had to lay-off. Aucland, the auction sales website established in Sophia-Antipolis by Fabrice Grinda and Sacha Fosse-Parisis, massively shed jobs at the beginning of the year. The number of employees then decreased from 130 last year to approximately thirty nowadays. At the same time, many foreign subsidiaries which opened with great pomp at the period of euphoria had to close down. Whereas rumours were going around on the research park that the website would close before the end of summer and that the nice adventure of Aucland would finish in August.

The new manager, Sylvie Fleury (Fabrice Grinda had left in November and the American Paul Zilk, who replaced him gave up last May), asserts that Aucland will remain all summer long. In the JournalduNet.com (see article "Aucland.com wants to restructure to attract a potential buyer "), this former manager for another subsidiary of Europ@web specifies that her mission is to restructure Aucland and to decrease costs a bit more.

Sylvie Fleury doesn’t hide that reconsidering the accountancy and redefine the economic model aims at attracting a buyer. Wanadoo, the main partner of Aucland, is obviously most likely to buy it but even if its manager doesn’t mention a name in the article of the Journal du Net. Concerning the liabilities of the company, it was estimated at 60 million francs (it would be less, according to Sylvie Fleury, who doesn’t reveal any figure though). Obviously, the liabilities will be a bad point in the case of a potential buyout.