Alno asks court to cancel self-administration

Alno AG has requested to withdraw its self-administration following what it described as a number of “untruthful allegations and accusations”.

The management board has submitted the request to the Insolvency Court in Hechingen. Prof Dr Martin Hörmann will now be commissioned by the District Court of Provisional Insolvency as provisional insolvency administrator and will help to determine the “essential steps” in the reorganisation of the business.

Alno said that the application took into account the “considerable” uncertainty among customers, suppliers and employees of the Alno Group.

The board added that it wanted to ensure the continuation of the business and that the present decision would have no effect on employee wages.

“The aim of the subsequent procedure is to maintain the Alno Group,” it said in a statement, “to maintain as many jobs as possible and to achieve the best possible creditor satisfaction.

“The management will continue to support the provisional insolvency administrator in an energetic, constructive and responsible manner in his sanitation efforts.”

Prof Dr Hörmann added that he believed that there was still potential in the continuation of the business.

“It is a very complex and extremely difficult procedure,” he said. “Nevertheless, I see quite the opportunity for a rehabilitation and continuation of Alno and its sister companies. The market and demand are at home and abroad and the brand enjoys a high reputation among dealers, trade customers and end customers.”

The provisional adminstrator stressed that the management of Alno has been “very cooperative” in the previous application for insolvency proceedings and according to his current knowledge “no funds were drawn from the company before the applications for insolvency proceedings”.

He added that the management “had at no time intervened in the actions of the General Authorised Officers or the provisional self-administration”.

According to the group, an ‘asset deal’ will now be the most likely part of the reorganisation of the existing insolvency plan along with a ‘share deal’.

The board said it wanted to emphasise that all efforts would go towards the continuation of the business, the stablisation of customer relations and the long-term reorganisation of the company in the interest of the creditors.

It said the insolvency process was “necessary” in order to shape the future.

It also stressed that claims against former members of the management board would be “revealed to a considerable extent” but that the full determination and assertion would take several years.

Kbbreview understands from Dr Michael Frühmorgen, a partner at the Heussen law firm in Germany, that the court granted the group’s proposal and switched Alno AG onto standard insolvency proceedings on August 29/30.

“It seems that there were too many reservations/doubts on the side of creditors, customers and suppliers who no longer had confidence that the self-administration would handle the proceeding in an appropriate way and probably thought that a neutral person/authority – like a preliminary administrator – would handle the case in a better way and retrieve lost confidence in Alno,” he explained.

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