Provisional insolvency administrator Jean-Olivier Boghossian intends to hand the Saargummi group over to a new investor within the next few months – see Plasteurope.com of 15.11.2010. In view of the strong interest from prospective buyers, he sees “good prospects for restructuring”. More than 15 potential investors, including several competitors, have expressed an interest in the insolvent seal manufacturer. Most of them are focused principally on the automotive sector.

Boghossian has retained PricewaterhouseCoopers to conduct the sale. It is reported that the prospective purchasers include Toyota supplier Toyoda Gosei (Tokyo / Japan; www.toyoda-gosei.com) and Saargummi’s competitors Henniges Automotive (Farmington Hills, Michigan / USA; www.hennigesautomotive.com) and Cooper-Standard Automotive (Novi, Michigan / USA; www.cooperstandard.com). Henniges – which filed for insolvency in 2008 – is about to be transferred to a new financial investor. Its former German subsidiary has been renamed Draftex Automotive (Grefath / Germany; www.draftex.de) and is majority owned by Ruia (Calcutta / India; www.ruiagroup.co.in). Saargummi Deutschland (Wadern-Büschfeld / Germany; www.sgtechnologies.de) filed for insolvency on 5 November 2010, followed shortly afterwards by Saargummi GmbH. The holding company SaarGummi technologies (Schengen / Luxembourg) and the remaining sites and subsidiaries have not yet been affected.