Alno AG has secured a €6 million (£5.3m) loan and is in the final stages of selling Pino Küchen.
Alno insolvency proceedings were opened by the District Court of Hechingen on October 1, with Prof Dr Martin Hörmann being appointed insolvency administrator.
Alno AG confirmed that the sale of Pino is “near completion” with the investors accepting the tendor offer on October 1. The offer is still under cartel reservation, which requires the consent of the insolvency administrator, but is likely to be accepted, it said.
However, the investor process for Alno and Wellmann is still in the decisive phase and is currently under “high pressure”.
In the meantime, insolvency administrator Hörmann has secured a €6m loan, which will maintain the business operations such as the administration.
“The news about short-term financing as well as the upcoming takeover of Pino provide relief to the Alno companies and also offer employees a perspective,” it said in a statement.
Although this offers hope to employees, production at Alno, Wellmann and Pino will remain suspended until further investors are secured.
According to Hörmann, it is aiming to achieve Alno AG’s goals as soon as possible alongside the investors and maintain as many jobs as possible at the Pfullendorf and Enger sites.
While Alno AG doesn’t name the investor, Ballerina-Küchen key account manager Christian Käsemann claimed that there are three potential investors likely to take over Pino.
“It seems that Pino Küchen has been sold today but it is not allowed to name the investor,” he said. “From our point of view there are three potential target companies most likely to take over Pino -Steinhoff Group from South Africa who took over Impuls from Alno in 2015; Ikea, or Ipek Demirtas (ex CFO Alno) with First EPA Holding in Liechtenstein. It bought a lot of debt from Whirlpool and other Alno group creditors before the insolvency.
“On October 4 we will probably know how far the sale of Alno and Wellmann has come. Pino was the easiest to sell as it was the most profitable. But it does not have its own purchasing and materials administration as everything was steered through Alno Pfullendorf.”
kbbreview understands that the Alno brand name may be sold to a company based in China.