In keeping with its 7th commitment pertaining to reviving the industrial vitality of its regions, Compagnie des Alpes announces that it is acquiring the business assets and maintaining the employees of SOMERM (Société de Montage & d’Entretien de Remontées Mécaniques), located in Savoie, a French department in the Western Alps, in Gilly-sur-Isère.
For Compagnie des Alpes, the transfer of these business assets responds to the challenge of increasing its expertise in the installation and maintenance of mountain lifts.
But more broadly and above all, it will safeguard jobs and rare expertise in the Savoie. In fact, Compagnie des Alpes has committed to maintaining virtually all positions, i.e., 6 full-time workers and around 40 seasonal employees.
In total, 25 FTE jobs will be maintained at the Gilly-sur-Isère shop.
Substantial synergies will be created with INGELO, the engineering subsidiary of Compagnie des Alpes, via INGELO Montage, a dedicated entity whose purpose is to support and develop the expertise and maintenance/installation skills that are specific to the mountain setting and in rare supply, serving all players in the field of ski lift technology in particular and mountain activities in general.
For Antoine PIRIO, Director of Ski Areas & Outdoor Activities for Compagnie des Alpes, “by acquiring the assets of SOMERM, we are able to safeguard more than two dozen jobs in the heart of the Alps. In addition to keeping its promise of revitalizing regional industry, Compagnie des Alpes is contributing to the preservation of expertise that is indispensable to the French mountain and outdoor activity industry and that enables us to have access to the materials needed to achieve the highest standards of quality.”
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Founded in 1987 and specializing in the maintenance of ski lifts and civil engineering, SOMERM has been operating in Gilly-sur-Isère since 2018, in recently built facilities. Facing financial challenges since the COVID crisis and then placed in receivership, the company generated revenues of €2 million in 2023. The asset transfer process was undertaken by the court, and Compagnie des Alpes was the only party to express interest.
