“How to reimburse a PGE that corresponds to 15% of my billing when I continue billing 20% less than before the crisis? It is not possible.” Patrick Bellity, Foundry Manager at Sifa Technologies, sums up the dilemma you are currently facing.
The company, already weakened by the diesel crisis at the end of the 2010s, signed a PGE in mid-2020. The businessman has negotiated a delay until November 2022 of his first reimbursements. And then ? “I don’t know if I’ll be able to pay because I don’t know what my order level will be in the fall,” he says.
According to the Banque de France, of the almost 700,000 companies that have signed a PGE for more than 148,000 million euros in total, the delinquency rate could barely reach 3%.
“In general, many companies have a fairly strong ability to adapt,” confirms Virginie Normand, director of specialized markets Banque Populaire de BPCE, who judges the level of non-payment at this stage to be “epsilonesque” on the some 230,000 PGE granted by the group.
“With some exceptions, companies have begun to reimburse as planned,” we confirmed at Bercy, where the crisis exit committee created in mid-2021 is being put to the test.
“There is no more room to manoeuvre”
But these rather reassuring statistics should not hide the real difficulties of certain companies.
As for the tourist group Pierre et Vacances, forced into a backup plan and whose PGE was converted into capital for more than 200 million euros, with which the creditors entered the group’s shareholding.
In the hotel and restaurant industry, where many companies have hired PGEs, one in four companies said at the end of June that they could not meet their refunds, in a context where inflation is holding back consumer spending.
The situation is also tense in tourism where “many companies, badly hit by the pandemic, have requested the maximum authorized PGE, that is (an amount corresponding to) 25% of the billing. Reimbursing it in four years is really complicated,” he worries. Yvon Peltanche. , representative of the professional association Travel Companies.
He himself has contracted several PGEs for his network of travel agencies. He has no difficulty paying in the short term but “has no more room for manoeuvre” if activity falters, as he already fears with the disruptions expected in air travel this summer.
In the textile sector, the treasurer of the National Federation of Clothing (FNH), Stéphane Rodier, explains to AFP that he received “not very happy responses from accounting firms, to the extent that the PGE will now be reimbursed not in 6 years but in 4 years (due to the postponement of two years of the first installments), with sometimes a little less activity”.
Restructure
Companies in crisis can request the restructuring of their PGE through credit mediation, through a specific mechanism negotiated between the State and the banks, which in particular allows the amortization period to be extended up to 10 years.
At the moment, only 300 cases have been handled through credit mediation, a “very low” figure, a sign that the financial situation of companies remains positive, according to mediator Frédéric Visnovsky.
However, many companies are unaware of the existence of this 10-year staggering mechanism, and many others avoid it because it lowers their rating and complicates their financing.
“I started to worry at the beginning of 2022 because the cash flow was accelerating quite slowly. I said to myself: + I’ll go negotiate with my bankers +. They said + Very good, but I know that it will be difficult for you to finance yourself the next 3 to 5 years + ”, says Jean Valfort, at the head of Panorama Group, owner of five restaurants and virtual kitchen brands, which has contracted a PGE of 1.5 million euros.
Worrying about deteriorating prospects
“When you are in default, the credit insurers withdraw, which means that you have to pay your suppliers immediately, and that only makes the situation worse”, also advances François Asselin, president of the CPME, who believes that companies will tend to “prefer collective procedures that freeze debts” (safeguard plan, receivership, liquidation, etc.)
“We are aware of this difficulty, but the PGE is a bank loan, so the banks apply rules,” it sets at a European level, Bercy responds.
If there is no fire today, the deterioration of the economic outlook for the coming months is worrying. “We are beginning to see signs of erosion of the order books” of the companies and, “if the activity falls apart, it can get complicated”, warns François Asselin.
The Banque de France, on which credit mediation depends, could also soon revise upwards its forecasts on the number of companies that cannot repay their PGE, recognizes Frédéric Visnovsky.
Source: BFM TV
