The 250 employees at insolvent German automotive supplier Plastal’s plant in Hambach / France can finally breathe a sigh of relief. On 3 September, the group’s insolvency administrator announced that the French plant had joined a string of other Plastal facilities that have become part of French automotive giant Faurecia (Nanterre; www.faurecia.com). This means the financial restructuring of the German group, which is specialised on the production of plastic parts for car bodies and bumpers and had filed for insolvency in early 2009 (see Plasteurope.com of 09.03.2009), has now been wrapped up.

Over the course of the last few years, Faurecia acquired most of Plastal’s plants in a piecemeal fashion, starting with the group’s six German sites (see Plasteurope.com of 05.02.2010) as well as its operation in Spain (Plasteurope.com of 08.07.2010). This approach has safeguarded all the sites’ operations as well as the almost 3,000 employees whose livelihoods had been threatened by the insolvency.