Brand Failures

282 Brand failures
95 Moulinex
Going up in smoke
Moulinex, the French-based electrical household appliance manufacturer,
filed for bankruptcy in September 2001. The action placed the brand in
immediate jeopardy, but was seen as necessary. ‘If they want to keep going
but the shareholders wouldn’t agree, they had to do this, otherwise it would
have meant liquidation,’ said one analyst at a Paris-based brokerage.
As the company neared collapse, Moulinex’s 21,000 employees started to
resort to unusual methods in order to keep their jobs. One microwave factory
in northern France was occupied by workers and then set on fire. The
following day employees returned and threatened to detonate homemade
bombs to destroy what was left of the plant. According to Business Week
magazine, union officials even kidnapped the government appointed mediator
to try and get a better deal on lay-off packages. ‘I am somewhat detained,
but it’s not a real drama,’ was the message the nabbed mediator managed to
phone in to the press.
These dramatic events constituted only the final chapter in what had been
a slow and steady slide for the company. Under the management of Moulinex
founder, Jean Mantelet, the company failed to anticipate the economic
slowdown of the early 1980s, and from 1985 onwards losses began to mount
up. Another problem related to the company’s core product offering –
microwave ovens. Asian manufacturers were flooding the European market
with similar products, and often at lower prices. But still Moulinex continued
to spend money, with a strategy based on the takeover of other companies,