Greece’s Biggest Furniture Company, NEOSET, Files for Bankruptcy

Posted by keeptalkinggreece

The rope of recession that drags to the bottom even healthy companies and sends thousands of people to unemployment wrapped around one of the biggest furniture companies in Greece: NEOSET.
With a network of 100 stores in Greece and 1,014 employees the company apparently could not cope with liquidity problems.
After 30 years of activity in the Greek market NEOSET filed a request to be integrated to Article 99 of Bankruptcy Law on Tuesday.

“The major problems facing the furniture market and high liabilities led the company to apply for integration to Article 99 of Bankruptcy Law. According to the published financial statements, the company presented in fiscal year 2011 loss of € 7.8 million, while in the same period, total liabilities amounted to 53.1 million euro..

The equity of Neoset for fiscal year 2011 are much lower total liabilities and formed at 25.5 million (from 33.4 million in 2010).” (Capital)

In recent months the company had launched an aggressive advertising campaign with  main slogan, “We Greeks”, which aimed to limit the “omnipotence” of renowned multinational furniture companies in the Greek market.
NEOSET was active in production, franchising, retail distribution and export of home, commercial and office furniture. The brands of the company include Neoset, Neoset Kitchen, Neokatoikein, Skouropoulos and Neowood. It has branches in Canada, Russia and Romania and exports products among others to Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Romania and Equator.
According to Proto Thema, sales in Greece had dropped down to even 60%.
The bankruptcy application of NEOSET follows a similar application on October by another historic furniture company, SATO.
PS It looks as if there won’t be any Greek company standing on its feet by Christmas…