Schenk Plastic Solutions (Esslingen / Germany; www.schenk-ps.com) went into administration on 28 February 2008. The local court has appointed Manfred Dobler of tax consultancy Dobler & Partner (Stuttgart / Germany) as administrator. Dobler’s office said that there has been “certain amount of interest” in the company but that it was too early to draw firm conclusions. Schenk Plastic Solutions, formerly part of the automotive division of Sarna (Sarnen / Switzerland; www.sarna.com), has sites in Esslingen and Bretten in Germany and Liberec / Czech Republic. It was acquired in 2005 by Argantis (Cologne / Germany; www.argantis.de), a private equity investor specialising in mid-sized enterprises.

According to Argantis’ CEO, Fritz Graf von der Schulenburg, the private equity firm has been actively seeking a new investor since late September 2007 in order to exit the company. He says that Argantis has provided "very close support" for the business but that its performance has fallen short of the original plans presented by Sarna. Sales were just EUR 75m in 2007 compared with a forecast of EUR 85m. Argantis responded by revising the budget for Schenk, which it still describes as “very sound”, and initiated a restructuring drive. One reason for the failure of the new plans was that the banks apparently dragged their feet. However, when a prospective investor withdrew on the point of signing an agreement in late February the banks immediately demanded repayment of all liabilities.

Hartmut Scheurer has been managing director of Schenk Plastic Solutions since September 2007 when he succeeded Ulrich Kleinhans. The company has 496 employees and manufactures products for automotive seats, door and side trims, rear arm rests and petrol tank caps, as well as housings for electric and motor-driven machinery and handles. The company co-developed the “SkinForm” process which combines foaming and injection moulding in a single step.