Investors agree to buy German textile fibres firm Trevira

05 August 2009 16:52  [Source: ICIS news]

TORONTO (ICIS news)--Two investors have agreed to buy the German and Polish operations of insolvent textile fibres and polyester producer Trevira, the company’s insolvency administrator said on Wednesday.

The sale, to investors Stefan Messer und Karl-Gerhard Seifert, included Trevira production sites in Bobingen and Guben in Germany and a site in Zielona Gora, Poland, as well as all trademarks and intellectual property rights, administrator Werner Schneider said.

“Our objective was to hand over the company as completely as possible to an investor, who is interested to continue to run the company on a long-term and independent basis,” Schneider said.

“With the sale to these two experienced managers, this objective has been met“, he said. Schneider had said earlier he was negotiating management buy-outs for Trevira’s businesses in Belgium and Denmark.

The deal was expected to close by the end of September, subject to a “reservation of financing,” Schneider said.

The new company would have estimated annual sales of €210m ($304m) and about 1,450 workers, down from Trevira’s current workforce of 1,762.

Messer and Seifert said in a separate statement they planned to turn Trevira into a successful company with a flat organisational structure.

Both Messer and Seifert were familiar with Trevira, which used to be part of former German chemicals and pharmaceuticals major Hoechst, they said.

Messer is head of industrial gases firm Messer Group, which used to be controlled by Hoechst. Seifert, who used to be on Hoechst’s executive board, is head of former Hoechst business unit AllessaChemie.

India's petrochemicals major Reliance Industries bought Trevira in 2004 from Deutsche Bank.

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By: Stefan Baumgarten
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