Moulinex

Moulinex is a large French company of electric household appliances, created in 1937 in Normandy by Jean Mantelet under the name the mill-vegetables . It had its factories with Alençon (Orne), Cormelles-the-Royal (Calvados), Saint-Lo (Manche), Argentan (Flowering ash) and Falaise (Apple-brandy).

History

The creation of the company

In 1932, Jean Mantelet, managing jointly Manufacture of stamping of Bagnolet Mantelet and Boucher invents the Mill-Vegetable , based on rotation. It decides to market its product by making the turn of the fairs, in Lyon then Paris, and is distinguished by the Concours Lépine. Its mass production makes it possible to reduce the price, and it is the beginning of success, with two million apparatuses sold between 1933 and 1935.

In 1937 the factory of Bagnolet saturated, Jean Mantelet decides to settle in Normandy, with Alençon in the buildings of an unused factory. It can benefit from a female and rural labor of good quality. It is at that time that the Manufacture of stamping of Bagnolet Mantelet and Boucher is renamed the Mill-Vegetable .

In 1957 the company takes the name of Moulinex .

Multiplication of the products

The success of the company rests on products of quality, where the Design holds a big role, of easy use and low prices at the market. With its slogan “ Moulinex releases the woman ”, the mark accompanies through the domestic equipment, the emergence of the consumer society of the glorious Thirty. Mantelet develops on average 3 new products per annum, like the Mincing machine ( Robot-Marie , Robot-Sleeve-board , Robot-Marinette …), the Centrifugal machine (in 1963), the Spit-roaster, the Yaourtière, the Coffee machine, the Juice separator, the electric Can-opener, the Electric knife, the Microwawe oven (1979), the Machine to manufacture the pastes (1980)… At the beginning of the Years 1980, the day laborer production reaches 180.000 apparatuses for a manpower of thousand workmen. Moulinex is the manufacturer number 1 of the electric household appliances in France .

End of Moulinex

This success stops brutally with the disappearance of its founder. In the middle of the years 1980, a Reprise again of company by employees (LMBO) is installation but the badly prepared succession makes plunge the mark in the crisis. In 1991, Moulinex repurchases for 440 franc million the company Krups of which the social Restructuration will cost 360 million and will still accentuate financial throttling. The popular mark does not resist the foreign products any more, and its positioning in a segment moreover high-quality does not stick with its image.

In 1994, the company Euris of Jean-Charles Naouri takes the control of Moulinex with 33% of the capital. In 1996, Pierre Blayau is named chairman of the company. He does not manage however to rectify the company in spite of two Restructuration S severe (2400 stations removed into 1996,2000 in 2000). In August 2000, the company amalgamates with Brandt , and Pierre Blayau leaves the company at the edge of voluntary liquidation, with a premium of more than two million euros which shock the discharged employees or in deferment. In July 2004 it will be put in examination for “bankruptcy by use of ruinous means and bankruptcy by diversions of credits”.

Moulinex-Brandt files for bankruptcy in September 2001, then is repurchased in October by SEB which closes the factories. In Basse-Normandie, where Moulinex employed more than one thousand of employees on a half-dozen of factories, SEB closes all the factories. The anguish of Moulinex is lived very hard, with the feeling which an industrial jewel was sacrificed.

The general Company of the electrical motors (CGME) subsidiary of Moulinex, in rectification as its head office is repurchased by some of its frameworks under the name of Euromoteurs. Largely supported by the public finances to save the factories of Saint-Lo and Carpiquet, it is in contract with SEB for a provisioning over four years. But the company does not manage to be started again and was put in liquidation in March 2007. This name did not completely disappear because this mark is still used in other countries but more in France.

general President-directors

Jean Mantelet
Roland Darneau: 1991-1994 (Managing director since April 1987)
Jules Coulon: 1994 - February 1996
Pierre Blayau: February 1996 - December 2000
Patrick Puy: December 2000 - September 2001

External bonds

Official site of Moulinex
the saga of the Moulinex robots 1,2,3,4,5

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