“German mounting system manufacturer Schletter Group, which has been undergoing insolvency proceedings since March, is being taken over by Frankfurt, Germany based investment company Golden Square Capital. The current management remains involved with a minority stake. Golden Square Capital is backed by New York-based Avenue Capital Group, a private equity firm and hedge fund. In the course of the acquisition, of which no details were disclosed, » new capital totaling double-digit millions of euro« are to be made available for investments.
Just a few days ago Ludwig Schletter, son of the company founder and until 2015 himself managing director, declared a takeover of the company by his family with the support of an investor possible and sharply criticised the current management. This had been entrusted with the restructuring of the mounting system manufacturer, which had run into financial difficulties in 2015, because it had experience with such situations. But then the company was »further weakened despite a marked recovery« and finally went bankrupt, Schletter said in an interview with the local newspaper »Oberbayerisches Volksblatt«. He also doubted that the takeover by Golden Square Capital had already been completed. Rather, this had been published in order to prevent other investors from maintaining their bids.
According to Schletter Group, the new shareholder will »maintain the entire group including all companies and locations«. However, 90 of the current 230 employees will lose their jobs at the headquarters in Kirchdorf, Bavaria. Talks with the workers’ council are planned within the next few days. In addition, the 67,000 square meter company building is to be sold to a Bavarian investor; Schletter will in future use only part of the space as a tenant. By 2015, around 600 people had worked here. Since then, the total number of the group’s employees has remained roughly the same, but of the 1,400 jobs, the vast majority are at other locations. In addition to Germany, Schletter also produces in the USA and China.
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Photon.info 17 June 2018.