‘Forgotten’ dividend in the hands of former Atlantic workers

By George Lampiris

An unexpected development may take place within the next April for a portion of the employees of the bankrupt Atlantic chain. The chain that had filed for conciliation under Article 99 of the Bankruptcy Code and was declared bankrupt in 2011, continues in some way to occupy the news as according to information from Capital.gr, After 11 years, the Athens Court of First Instance came to award the distribution of a dividend to the former staff of the chain but also to the insurance funds.

According to the same information, the amount that will be distributed next April as a dividend, will amount to a total of 1 million euros. This amount is to be divided between the two. The 500 thousand euros will be allocated to the former employees of the Atlantic chain and the remaining 500 thousand euros are intended to meet part of the debts owed by the company to the Insurance Funds. This is an amount resulting from the sale of assets held by Atlantic, where the responsibility for the proceedings was assumed by the competent bankruptcy trustee.

From the constant rise to bankruptcy

Let us recall that Atlantik was founded in December 1979 when Panagiotis Apostolou created the first store of the later chain with an area of ​​250 square meters in Argyroupoli.

The son of Manolis Apostolos, who died suddenly in October 2017 at the age of 56, had been working for the company since the age of 23 in the mid-1980s. In January 2001, Atlantic shares were listed on the Athens Stock Exchange. Characteristic of its course is that when it stopped operating it was in 5th place among the largest supermarket chains in Greece, following AB Vassilopoulos, Sklavenitis, Veropoulos and Marinopoulos.

It should be noted that shortly after the conciliation application filed by the Atlantic administration in 2011, the Court ruled that the business plan had a good chance of success, ordering the opening of the conciliation procedure. As part of the conciliation process and based on the business plan it had submitted for the restructuring of its network and activities, Atlantik had sold much of its fixed equipment to other chains such as Sklavenitis, Masoutis, Market In, Supply, ANEDIK Cretan but also in companies – representatives of the industry such as MEVGAL.

The explicit condition of any sale of fixed assets was defined as the full security of the employees of the stores whose fixed equipment was sold. Thus, it is estimated that about 4,000 employees were fully paid and transferred to new employers, with the exact same working conditions and pay, but also with recognized previous service.

The conversion of the store in Alimos into a cosmetics store last December

Recently, another episode was written in the long epilogue concerning the Atlantic as in the for many years unused store that was housed at 516 Vouliagmenis Avenue in Argyroupoli, a cosmetic store of the Harmanis chain was created at the end of 2021, which is currently active with points in Egaleo, Agia Paraskevi, Peristeri, Maroussi and Patras.