Sandretto (Collegno / Italy; www.sandretto.it) and MIR (Brescia), two of the former "big four" in the Italian injection-moulding machine manufacturing industry – the other two are BMB (www.bmb-spa.com) and Negri Bossi (www.negribossi.it) – are up for auction. The companies' problems, typical in the beleaguered industry, have worryingly been dragging on for some time and it appears that little interest is being shown by potential buyers.

MIR (which in its heyday had annual sales of around EUR 80m) declared insolvency towards the end of 2005 because of over indebtedness. A partial takeover by HT Italy (Cazzago / Italy; www.htitalyspa.com), a subsidiary of the Chinese company Haitian Ningbo, had recently been discussed, but negotiations broke down a few days ago due to unsolved problems connected with tax debts. Now, the administrator has put up the company for auction in September 2007. There have been suggestions that a group of former employees who provide service and spare parts for MIR machines may take over the company, but that seems doubtful.

Its competitor in the Turin region, Sandretto, once the Italian market leader with sales topping EUR 130m, has also been through a turbulent time – see Plasteurope.com of 18.04.2006. The company gained some hope at the beginning of the year from the approval by the EU of a financial injection of EUR 5m by the Italian national and regional authorities, but, according to a report in the Turin newspaper "La Stampa", only EUR 2.5m was actually paid out.

Sandretto has carried out a considerable amount of reorganisation, but sales expectations have been downscaled to around EUR 30-35m. This has not been enough to save the company and, with ongoing operations being unable to provide for necessary investments, insolvency administrator Piercarlo Castagnetti has put the company up for sale, aiming to complete any transaction by September. Offers were submitted between 2 and 20 July – and so far Italian press reports of three interested industrial groups.