What was still treated as a secret at the Financial Press Conference of Deutsche Fibrit Gesellschaft Ebers & Dr Müller mbH (HQ: St. Töniser Str. 60, D-47803 Krefeld) on June 16 in Düsseldorf has since become official: the majority of Fibrit shareholders, the Müller family and IKB Deutsche Industriebank, have sold their shareholdings to Gebr. Happich GmbH (D-42097 Wuppertal). A company announcement states: "Happich will strengthen activities in the automobile interior components sector by acquisition of this majority shareholding". With it, Happich and Fibrit become one of the biggest specialists in Europe for interior components for the automobile industry. Happich considers that, in their product range and similarity in customer structure and company philosophy, both companies will fare best together, to get closer to the systems concept of the automobile industry. It is intended that Fibrit will continue as an independent unit within the Happich management company and will concentrate on the total systems business. The takeover of the shareholding is subject to agreement from the Federal Cartel Office as well as the non-exercise of option rights by the remaining Fibrit shareholders.

Last year Fibrit announced a cooperation with Dynamit Nobel AG (D-53822 Troisdorf). Regarding this, the chairman of the Fibrit board, Jan Müller, did not rule out the possibility that the association could be underpinned at a later date by a majority shareholding by Fibrit in Dynamit Nobel.

Fibrit turnover in 1993 fell by 8.4% to DM 362.4m. The company was in the red for the first time: losses amounted to DM 6.7m, following a profit of DM 2.2m registered in the previous year.

READER SERVICE: Fibrit company brochure "Cockpits": PIE-No. 31927 – Annual Report 1993 (German): PIE-No. 36238.