Bijou has closed its doors The Journal of Quebec

Bijou jewelry and accessory stores are closing their doors.

According to EnBeauce.comCiting a confidential source, employees reported hearing the news yesterday.

The chain, which has around 50 branches remaining, was sheltered from creditors in October 2020. By spring 2021, 24 of the 85 stores had closed in hopes of getting the business back on track.

Bijou, which employed 400 people, reduced its teams to 325 employees during the restructuring. The company, chaired by Marcel Labrecque and owned by the Labrecque family, had accumulated $10 million in debt when it filed for protection under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.

Loss of customers linked to restrictions and the transfer of purchases to digital will create financial difficulties for the trade. The closure of operations in France in 2019 also led to significant losses.

Bijou International, founded in Sainte-Marie-de-Beaus in 1982, has not publicly announced the new closings, and employees learned of their layoffs without notice.

Calls and emails from Log Head office went unanswered. This morning, customer service was still responding, but the employee we spoke to seemed clueless. This afternoon, phone calls were directed to voicemail.

Afternoon calls to branches in Montreal, Quebec and Saguenay were returned empty.

Trustee Ernst & Young has not been linked to the file for several months in its restructuring and proposal to creditors along with Bijou and was not aware of the sad outcome of the shops when we contacted him.

– In collaboration with Philippe Langlois and Dominique Lelievre