At the time in danger of going under, Rossignol was taken over in November 2008 by Chartreuse et Mont-Blanc, headed by Bruno Cercley, and staged a remarkable recovery.
Bearing a 200,000 euro loss per day and a debt close to 300 million euros, the group launched a stimulus plan aiming at focusing on its core business: skiing.
At the same time, the Group took a long hard look at the prospect of relocating certain production facilities in a bid to streamline their performance, exercise greater control and bring them closer to Europe, their core market.
In March 2010, bindings production was thus moved from Poland to the Nevers site in France. That was just the beginning: the production of 75,000 pairs of junior skis was also relocated from Taiwan to Sallanches, France in September 2010, and by the end of 2012 the production of further 20,000 pairs of skis was also relocated in France.
Ultimately, some 40 new jobs were thus created in the struggling labour market of France’s Haute-Savoie region.
Having achieved its goal, the group now views the future with confidence. Such a turnaround is of a great inspiration for international and French medias, generating strong press coverage, adding up to a hundred artcles between January 10th and 11th 2013.
