The social network French Viadeo placed into receivership – The Figaro

Created in 2005, this French rival LinkedIn has been placed in receivership for three months. It will remain operational until the end of the procedure.

Linkedin is not able to straighten the bar. The professional social network French announced on Tuesday have been placed in receivership by the tribunal de commerce of Paris, for a period of three months. It will remain operational for its customers and for its members, until the end of the procedure.

At the beginning of the year, the company has announced a change of CEO and has significantly reviewed its ambitions downward. “Instead of trying to conquer the world, we will focus on France and our flagship products”, which had indicated its new executive director, Renier Lemmens, in a press release. The goal was to refocus on the country, the source of 95% of its turnover, and reducing the more quickly its expenses. In the first half, Viadeo has reduced its loss to 4.3 million euros, compared to 6.8 million in the same period in 2015. Its turnover has fallen by a third to 8.8 million euros. Especially, Viadeo has not been able to follow the pace imposed by its first competitor, the american LinkedIn.

Long placed on a footing of equality, LinkedIn has gradually exceeded Viadeo. Both claimed more than 10 million users in France. But the international presence of the us network, its attractiveness in the eyes of large companies and the success of its Premium offering has earned it recently bought by Microsoft, for $ 26.2-billion. Viadeo has never managed to develop a comparative advantage in the height of LinkedIn.

Despite this rout, the social network keeps fans in France. It identifies 11 million users and has attracted 2.7 million unique visitors in France in October, compared to 5.3 million for LinkedIn. The launch of a new app dedicated to job search was scheduled for the beginning of 2017. With chatbots, software, chat, his goal was to humanize the approach of the candidates offers more adapted to their respective profiles.

The response of the commercial court of Paris is expected by the end of December. He will decide after the examination of bids from buyers, financially strong and with a recognised expertise on the recruitment market online”. These same requirements provide for the maintenance of a “significant portion” of the workforce, says the group. A process of disposing of assets of the company had already been committed. Viadeo had requested the suspension of its Stock price on November 10.