With the help of the Austrian political sector and two Vienna law firms, management of insolvent Battenfeld Injection Moulding (Kottingbrunn / Austria; www.battenfeld-imt.com) is struggling to regain control of its service segment spun off by Adcuram (Munich / Germany; www.adcuram.com) prior to the bankruptcy declaration on 3 January 2008, find a new investor and raise the needed capital to make a fresh start – see Plasteurope.com of 08.01.2008.

Management under CEO Georg Tinschert (the former president of Engel has been at Battenfeld since 1 December 2007), said it sees “good chances of re-floating the company with the appropriate support of investors, bridging assistance from the state of Lower Austria and the labour market service,” whereby the decisive factor will be regaining control over the service segment and reducing production costs by concentrating on the core portfolio. Several companies, including Austria’s highly expansive High Tech Industries (HTI, Neudörfl; www.hti-ag.at) are believed to have expressed interest in taking a stake.

Law firm FWP Fellner Wratzfeld Partner (www.fwp.at) has been tapped to draw up a restructuring plan, and insolvency administrator Michael Lentsch of law firm Kosch & Partner (www.kosch-partner.at) was to draw up a liquidity plan. Lower Austria governor Erwin Pröll said planned to negotiate with banks to try to raise the EUR 15m needed to keep the company afloat beyond 14 January and possibly until March 2008, while a sale is being prepared.

According to Vienna-based credit bank AKV, Adcuram had pledged, but not delivered, a cash injection of EUR 2m for the second half of 2007. The bank said Battenfeld management may be in a good position to challenge Adcuram’s carve-out of the profitable service segment, as that company signed “extremely unfavourable” supply and service contracts with the machinery producer shortly after the separation.