Loss-making French Dover Strait ferry operator SeaFrance has been given four months to improve its financial situation by a French court.
The Paris court of commerce, which had been expected to rule on the validity of the company's latest recovery plan, opted instead to extend the observation period it had imposed on the company until December 15.
SeaFrance said it would make use of the extension to implement the restructuring of the company it had agreed with trade unions at the company in July and to put in place financing to secure the company's long-term future.
Deputy chief executive Vincent Launay said that company management would be meeting union representatives at the start of next week to prepare implementation of the 725 job cuts provided for by the recovery plan among SeaFrance's original 1,580 employees.
He indicated, however, that 360 employees have already left the company in recent months and only 365 redundancies remained to be carried out.
Regarding the company's financial needs, he said that the European Commission had approved the plans of the company's owning shareholder, French national rail company SNCF, to provide it with a EUR50 million credit line.
But he said that this was destined to meet the company's short-term needs. With regard to its long-term needs, he said that "all solutions can be envisaged."
He did not rule out a fresh call for outside investors but said that it would be for the judicial administrators who currently have charge of the company's affairs to decide whether or not to do this.
A previous call for investors, which expired at the end of July, produced only one bid from an investment company called Being Bang, which finally withdrew its offer after being told that it was unsuitable.
Asked if the company had had any approaches from investors since then, Mr. Launay said: "Not to my knowledge."
In the meantime, the company is waiting for the European Commission to approve its recovery plan.
Mr. Launay said that he hoped a decision would be forthcoming from the commission before December 15.
Andrew Spurrier