The cable manufacturer wants to reposition itself financially.
(Photo: dpa)
Munich The ailing auto supplier Leoni is seeking an agreement with its creditors. Even before his departure at the end of March, the outgoing Leoni boss Aldo Kamper wants to present a financing concept. An agreement in principle will be reached “with a high degree of probability” in the first quarter, said Kamper on Thursday evening in the Club Wirtschaftspresse München.
After a failed partial sale, the ailing company is currently in difficult negotiations with its creditor banks. The banks have promised to remain silent until the middle of the year, said Kamper. “But you need a solution well in advance.”
An agreement in principle is already conceivable in the next few days, the Handelsblatt learned from financial circles. If successful, this will probably also include a debt-equity swap, i.e. the conversion of part of the liabilities into equity.
Renovator Ziems is conducting the negotiations
Kamper did not comment on the status of the negotiations. He only said that there would probably be solutions that would be painful for everyone involved.
A few days earlier, the Leoni CEO had surprisingly announced his departure in the middle of the restructuring phase. The Dutchman takes over the CEO position at the sensor and chip group AMS-Osram, for which he had worked for a long time before moving to Leoni.
Leoni is not without a leader, said Kamper. The restructuring expert Hans-Joachim Ziems, who recently returned to Leoni’s board, is leading the negotiations with the banks anyway.
>> Read about this: Leoni CEO Aldo Kamper leaves ailing auto supplier
Kamper’s contract was only extended a year and a half ago. The timing is “of course not nice,” said the Leoni CEO. But returning to Osram, for which he had worked for 22 years before moving to Leoni, was too attractive an offer. “My heart already beats for semiconductors.” At Osram, he was most recently in charge of the chip division.
An essential part of the refinancing concept by the end of 2025 should actually be the sale of the cable division Business Group Automotive Cable Solutions to the Thai Stark Corporation.
The unit, which recently achieved sales of around 1.3 billion euros, was valued at almost 600 million euros. More than 400 million euros should flow to Leoni after deduction of financial liabilities and pension costs. However, the Thais backed down shortly before the transaction was completed.
Cable business will probably not be sold
The division will probably remain with Leoni. There are advantages to having your own cable division as a wiring system specialist, said Kamper. “We now need a resilient solution that works without a sale.” However, he left open how the mountain of debt can now be reduced. According to assessments by the creditor banks, a price like Stark would have paid could no longer be achieved in the current environment anyway.
Leoni is considered systemically important in the automotive industry. When the company had to interrupt the production of cable harnesses in the Ukraine after the outbreak of war, the assembly lines at car manufacturers also came to a temporary standstill. This is also why the banks have an interest in a solid solution for Leoni.
The chip specialist Kamper was actually brought to Leoni to drive growth. But then he was in demand as a renovator. The wiring systems specialist got carried away with the expansion, and the start-up of a plant in Mexico turned out to be a disaster. When the corona pandemic came along, Leoni was one of the first companies in Germany to have to apply for state aid.
Kamper said he was confident that Leoni would be able to operate successfully once the debt issue had been clarified. “A recovery of Leoni is basically possible.” In any case, the rescue should not fail due to the demand. The business situation in the auto industry improved significantly in January, as the Ifo Institute reported on Friday. The corresponding indicator rose significantly, and expectations for the coming months were positive again for the first time in around six months.
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