Fuba, the fourth largest European manufacturer of circuit boards (EPP Europe 1/2, 2005, page 17) has filed a petition for insolvency in self-administration, and a restructuring plan was submitted to save more than 600 of the 870 jobs in both the Gittelde and Dresden plants in Germany. The main emphasis of the intended reduction of staff lies in the Gittelde plant, where 240 workers shall be offered a transition into an employment and qualification society. Only 15 jobs will be affected in Dresden. Managing director Andreas Ebeling says that the reasons for this dramatic development are the slump in the global PCB market, a high charge caused by balance-sheet legacies, a spiral of under-utilization, as well as high personnel costs and over capacity. “Since our takeover in October 2003 we have had to accept losses in our Gittelde plant. The reasons for these losses are due to the fact that our production sites are not yet entirely orientated towards the needs of the market.“
The management is using an insolvency planning procedure, existing in Germany since 1999. With the help of this addition (chapter eleven), there is in principle an opportunity to free a company from a balance debt overload and to maintain its sound substance. Fuba has provided the insolvency court a restructuring plan. In case it agrees, the court will appoint a temporary insolvency administrator and can summons the creditors which will finally decide whether the concept is accepted or refused. For a successful restructuring, it is necessary to first cut back costs in Gittelde concerning expenses for keeping the capacity available. Moreover, the division of work and synergies between the Gittelde and Dresden plants as well as of the site in Bizerte, where Fuba runs a joint venture with a Tunisian enterprise, had to be completed.
It is intended that the Gittelde site will become the high-tech core of the company, offering demanding solutions, especially for automotive customers and developing business niche-areas. The Dresden plant will be producing demanding products in the mid-tech area in the future, and at the Tunisia plant all other PCBs, which are exposed to high pricing pressure, will be manufactured. For the executives Ebeling and Drach, the first priority remains the supply of high-quality products. “We are sure that we will reposition and reestablish the plants without suffering a grain of precision or punctuality to the customers“, promises Walter Drach. The key customers assured the company of their support and loyalty. The payment of all salaries is said to be safeguarded. The reduction of jobs and further structural steps will be developed mutually with the company councils and the union. Since 1959, the Gittelde plant has been producing PCBs. Until 1998 the site belonged to Fuba Hans Kolbe & Co. Then Vogt took over the commerce, operating from 1998 to 2003 as Vogt Electronic Fuba GmbH. When Andreas Ebeling and Walter Drach have taken over the company in a management buy-out, they changed the name to Fuba Printed Circuits GmbH.
EPP EUROPE 400
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