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The End of Tunisia's Inesfood

Unable to pay its debt, the Tunisian private company Inesfood filed for bankruptcy and is now under receivership under the responsibility of administrator Salah Dhibi. The current phase will be critical to the future of the company, if it seeks to resume its activities.

Inesfood was founded by its CEO Jallel Ben Aissa, who left the company and Tunisia to reside in a foreign country. A move to receivership was inevitable as the company's main shareholders say they were no longer willing to help it out of its troubles. To face its debt repayment, the company began to sell its assets. It started with its Maghreb Food subsidiary that it sold to Groupe Bellagha, whose main unit is the Appétissante Company, known for the Tom cookies. The sale of Maghreb Food was not enough to cover the debt, and two other business units went up for sale. They were the Société Centrale Laitière Tunisienne and the Arab Food Industrie for which tenders were launched last May.

Many companies came forward as potential buyers including Mohsen Hachicha, SFBT, Meddeb, producer of Délice Danone and other contenders. But perhaps the most interesting event was that two of the largest units of the Inesfood group, which has 20 entities, went to companies whose core activities excluded the food industry. They are the Béchir Doghri Company, a firm active in plastic production, chemicals, marble, farm machinery and real estate, and Bechir Ben Jemaa and importer of agricultural tractors, all-wheel vehicles, and also active in manufacturing industry and real estate development.

The "end" of Inesfood began when the Manouba tribunal ordered on May 24th the sale of Société Centrale Laitière Tunisienne and Arab Food Industrie to the Société Tunisienne pour le Lait et Dérivés, a TND 4 million corporation established as a joint venture by the Doghri and Ben Jemaa companies. The sale of these units is not permanent and is only valid for two years, effective July 1, 2005.

Established in 1988, Inesfood began operating in an environment characterized by optimism and good prospects. The group started in the milk and dairy industries, and strengthened its position after it signed a partnership deal with the French company Sodiaal. Its future was considered even brighter when it purchased in 2001 the milk company Laiterie du Nord-Ouest, the first company to introduce fresh milk in the bottled sterilized milk market in the early 1990s.

Up until 2001, Inesfood owned 20 companies mainly active in milk and derivatives market. That year, Inesfood owners launched a restructuring plan that led to a series of mergers within the group. In particular, Centrale Laitière Tunisienne absorbed five of Inesfood units. They were Inesfood Distribution, Centrale Laitière du Nord (Celainord), Générale Laitière, Nutrafood and Société Arab d'Investissement et de Financement, known as SAIF.

While this restructuring was meant to introduce prudent management practices and the elimination of redundancies, the company failed to control its finances appropriately. Its debt continued to rise until it filed for receivership. Today the future of Inesfood is unclear. The administrator in charge of Inesfood has a major project and has been looking for ways to save the dozens of jobs that are at risk.

© The North Africa Journal 2005