By
AFP
Translated by
Nicola Mira
Printed
February 11, 2025
Ginette Moulin, the proprietor of French division retailer group Galeries Lafayette, died on Sunday on the age of 98, the group confirmed to the AFP company on Tuesday.
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Moulin was the granddaughter of Théophile Bader, who based the division retailer with Alphonse Kahn in Paris in 1894.
Together with her household, Moulin was ranked thirty fourth in Challenges journal’s listing of French billionaires, with a enterprise fortune value €4.05 billion.
In August 2024, Moulin handed over the reins of the household holding firm Motier to her son-in-law Philippe Houzé, assisted by her grandchildren Nicolas Houzé, Guillaume Houzé and Arthur Lemoine. The group mentioned the handover had been deliberate “well in advance.”
Moulin was a key determine within the household historical past of Galeries Lafayette. She personally knew the members of the 5 generations that successively took the helm of the long-lasting Parisian retailer with its flagship on Boulevard Haussmann.
She was born on February 7 1927, the daughter of Max Heilbronn, a resistance fighter deported throughout World Conflict II to Buchenwald, Germany, the place he met Etienne Moulin, the person who later was to marry his daughter.
As of January 2025, the Galeries Lafayette group operated 57 branches in France, of which 19 are immediately owned and 38 operated by franchised companions.
In January, the group mentioned it’s planning to shut by the top of 2025 its two branches in Marseilles, which “have been posting recurring losses for several years,” and pledged to “promote the redeployment of the 145 employees concerned.”
On the finish of 2023, the group bought one other iconic Parisian division retailer, the Bazar de l’Lodge de Ville (BHV), ceding it to a small property firm named Société des Grands Magasins (SGM).
Main Carrefour shareholder
Philippe Houzé, who was named Galeries Lafayette board chairman in 2005 and can succeed Moulin as president of Motier, is the husband of Christiane, one of many Moulin couple’s three daughters.
“He will be tasked with overseeing the growth of the Moulin family’s assets, which include the Galeries Lafayette group, [French e-tailer] La Redoute, and a significant stake in the Carrefour group,” mentioned Galeries Lafayette in January.
The Galeries Lafayette homeowners have been main shareholders of French grocery distribution big Carrefour since 2014, even when they don’t seem to be the primary shareholder from March 2024, when Carrefour purchased 25 million of its shares from Galfa, an organization owned by the Moulin household.
On this capability, Philippe Houzé is vice-chairman of the board of administrators at Carrefour, which additionally contains Patricia Moulin Lemoine, Ginette Moulin’s eldest daughter.
Three of Ginette Moulin’s grandchildren, Nicolas Houzé, Guillaume Houzé and Arthur Lemoine, had been additionally appointed vice-presidents of Motier.
“Planned” handover
This governance change got here on the finish of a chaotic interval for the Galeries Lafayette group, which for a number of years has been impacted by the results of the Covid-19 pandemic on its world enterprise.
The pandemic and associated journey restrictions disadvantaged the group of enormous elements of its clientèle, and enterprise was severely undermined by the lockdowns in 2020 and 2021.
In mid-December, occasion gross sales web site BazarChic, owned by Galeries Lafayette, started a “winding down procedure” that varied media shops mentioned would threaten about 100 jobs, until a purchaser is discovered.
Final June, Galeries Lafayette indicated that in 2024 it needed to recapture its 2019 income degree, equal to €3.85 billion generated by the chain as an entire. Galeries Lafayette, which celebrated its one hundred and thirtieth anniversary in 2024, reported €3.6 billion value of gross sales by the chain in 2023, of which €1.9 billion by the Boulevard Haussmann department alone.
