SeaFrance

SeaFrance was a ferry company based in France, wholly owned by the French railways, SNCF, which operated ferry services between Calais, France, and Dover, England.

The company employed a total of 1,850 staff, including 1,300 seagoing personnel, and was the largest employer in the town of Calais.[2] Its sister company, SeaFrance Limited, employed 200 in England. On 9 January 2012 the Commercial Court in Paris announced their decision to liquidate SeaFrance. From then on the company was prohibited from trading, with the loss of 1,850 jobs.[3]

History

SeaFrance began operations between Dover and Calais in 1996 after the termination of a pooling agreement with Sealink (by then known as Stena Sealink Line) in 1995. The service initially began with the former Sealink vessels Fiesta and Côte d'Azur which became SeaFrance Cézanne and SeaFrance Renoir respectively after extensive refurbishments to create a distinctive French atmosphere on board.

Restructuring

In 2005, SeaFrance made a €9.27 million loss, but made a net profit of €7.9 million in 2006. In 2008, the company lost €20 million and since October 2008 had been losing in the region of €3 million a month.[5]

On 17 February 2009, SeaFrance announced a restructuring plan following a decline in its freight carryings and significant losses. The restructuring would see up to 650 jobs lost in France and the withdrawal of the SeaFrance Cézanne, SeaFrance Nord Pas-de-Calais and SeaFrance Renoir.[6] A previous restructuring plan by SeaFrance submitted in January 2009 was rejected by owners SNCF. Following the restructuring announcement LD Lines indicated they would be interested in taking over SeaFrance.[7] On 16 March 2009, Brittany Ferries announced it had also made an offer for SeaFrance. The Brittany Ferries offer involved the creation of a new holding company in which Brittany Ferries would have a 75% stake with the remainder being owned by SNCF.[8] In September 2010 the CFDT union rejected a plan for 400 redundancies as part of restructuring.[9]

On 15 November 2011, the company suspended operations for 48 hours pending a court hearing the following day.[10] At the hearing on 16 November, the commercial court ordered the liquidation of SeaFrance, but allowed the ferry operator to continue trading until 28 January 2012. However, actual ferry operations were shut down, with the administrators claiming that the safety of vessels, staff and property could not be guaranteed. The union argued that the shutdown was an illegal lock-out and was ruining SeaFrance's core business, with customers switching to competitors, and suggested it was part of a move by management to sabotage a takeover by a co-operative of SeaFrance workers ("SCOP"). On 19 December 2011, the commercial court in Paris postponed its decision on the takeover bid for SeaFrance submitted by the co-operative until 3 January. The main staff union, the CFDT, was back in Paris the following day, to hear the appeal court's verdict on its request that SeaFrance's ferries be allowed to return to service. "The judicial administrators withdrew their request that SeaFrance be liquidated with immediate effect and this was good news", said a senior official of the CFDT. "We are now demanding that the government, via [its parent company] SNCF, become a shareholder in the new SeaFrance company and thus allow us to save 1,000 jobs", he added. The co-operative's bid had attracted promises of funding from local authorities of less than €15 million out of the estimated €25-30 million required.[11]

type	Limited
genre	Ferry company
fate	Liquidation
successor	MyFerryLink (Eurotunnel)
foundation	1996
founder	SNCF
defunct	9 January 2012
location	Paris, France‡R1R‡
area served	United Kingdom, France, English Channel, Dover, Calais
services	Passenger transportation, freight transportation
owner	SNCF
homepage	seafrance.com

History

Restructuring

Liquidation

Former fleet

External links

References