The stake pledged as collateral was actually 37%, but ES’s creditors, by staying below the 30% threshold, managed to avoid having to trigger a public offering.

The creditors were keen to sell their stake in SMCP in order to recover the money lent to ES, and they were planning to remove from the group’s board the representatives of Shandong Ruyi, whose financial situation has been concerning financial experts for several years.

On Friday afternoon, at the end of a shareholders’ meeting in Paris that lasted less than an hour, the matter was settled.

GLAS was backed by a large majority of the shareholders, and the motion to dismiss Yafu Qiu, chairman of the board, and Shandong Ruyi’s four other representatives on the board (Weiying Sun, Chenran Qiu, Xiao Su and Kelvin Ho), was approved by more than 78% of the voters at the meeting.

Christophe Chenut, Xavier Veret and Natalia Nicolaidis join board

Shandong Ruyi and ES attempted to have the general meeting “adjourned,” since they knew they would find themselves in a vulnerable position, but the Paris trade court ruled that the meeting was to go head, rejecting their appeal at the start of the week.

The shareholders also approved the appointment of three new independent board members. They are Christophe Chenut, former boss of Lacoste

Christopher Zanardi-Landi, the CEO of Louis Vuitton

The three new members of the board, which has lost two elements in the reshuffle, join Isabelle Guichot (CEO of SMCP), Sandro and Maje founders Evelyne Chetriteand Judith Milgrom

With AF