UpdateDyStar insolvency affects 1,300 jobs in Germany

29 September 2009 17:50  [Source: ICIS news]

(Updates throughout and releads with confirmation from DyStar)

TORONTO (ICIS news)--International textile chemicals producer DyStar has filed for insolvency with a court in Germany, affecting 1,300 workers at five production sites there, the company said on Tuesday.

DyStar is one of the world’s largest textile chemicals producers, along with firms such as Huntsman and Clariant.

The insolvency filing, with a court at DyStar's headquarters in Frankfurt, affected workers at sites in Frankfurt, Leverkusen, Brunsbuttel, Gerestried and Ludwigshafen, the company said in a statement.

DyStar’s insolvency filings included DyStar Holdings GmbH, DyStar Textilfarben GmbH and DyStar Textilfarben GmbH & Co. Deutschland KG, it said. 

The insolvency filings became necessary after alternatives to address the companies liquidity problems did not work out, it said.

The court appointed lawyers Stephan Laubereau and Miguel Grosser as preliminary insolvency administrators, the company said.

The administators were currently meeting with DyStar's management to discuss the situation, it added.

Media officials at DyStar owner, US firm Platinum Equity, were not immediately available for comment. A DyStar spokeswoman in Germany told ICIS news she could not provide comment going beyond the company's statement.

DyStar's insolvency filing comes after reports in the German press last week that the company may be broken up and sold amid tough market conditions in the texitle chemicals industry.

DyStar was formed in 1995 out of the textile dyes businesses of Bayer and former German chemicals major Hoechst. In 2000, BASF integrated its dyes business into DyStar. Platinum bought it in 2004.

As recently as May, DyStar told ICIS news that cost cutting measures, including 300 job cuts at production sites in Germany, were beginning to take effect.

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By: Stefan Baumgarten
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