Home care company Orpea rejects allegations of resident abuse

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Jan 24 (Reuters) – French care home operator Orpea on Monday dismissed allegations of resident abuse in a forthcoming book after excerpts in the newspaper Le Monde sent its shares plummeting.

The article included excerpts from “Les Fossoyeurs”, a 388-page book by journalist Victor Castanet that exposes mistreatment of the group’s elderly residents at a site outside Paris.

“We strongly deny all of these accusations, which we consider to be false, outrageous and harmful,” the company said in a statement.

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He added that he has already contacted his lawyers to take all necessary steps, including legal action.

Orpea is one of Europe’s largest for-profit retirement home operators alongside French rival Korian (KORI.PA), with a network of 1,156 facilities and over 90,000 beds in 23 countries spanning Europe. Europe, Asia and Latin America.

The group is growing rapidly, adding more than 1,000 new beds in its third quarter of last year, as it seeks to increase its turnover by more than 14% to more than 4.2 billion d euros ($4.74 billion) this year compared to before the pandemic.

The Paris stock exchange had suspended trading at Orpea’s request at 11:45 GMT, pending the release of the statement, as the stock fell 16% to its worst performance in a single day, while shares of Korian fell by more than 10%.

Published by Fayard in Paris, “Les Fossoyeurs” goes on sale on Wednesday 26 January.

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Reporting by Sarah Morland, Juliette Portala and Valentine Baldassari; edited by Jason Neely and David Evans

Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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