Self-administration ensures preservation and further development

The fol­low­ing deci­sion was encour­ag­ing: “The insol­ven­cy plan of Hart­mann GmbH received the full approval of all cred­i­tors at the vot­ing date on Jan­u­ary 12, 2022 before the Chem­nitz Dis­trict Court and was also final­ly con­firmed by the court. The pro­ceed­ings have now been ter­mi­nat­ed on March 31, 2022, and the com­pa­ny is mak­ing a fresh start out of insol­ven­cy,” says attor­ney Dr. Nils Freuden­berg from the Tiefen­bach­er Insol­ven­zver­wal­tung law firm. He had been appoint­ed admin­is­tra­tor in the self-admin­is­tra­tion pro­ceed­ings of the Sax­on med­ical tech­nol­o­gy company.

Accord­ing­ly, he rep­re­sent­ed the cred­i­tors and coor­di­nat­ed their inter­ests with the self-admin­is­ter­ing man­ag­ing direc­tor Paul Hart­mann. The judi­cial restruc­tur­ing process was pre­pared and man­aged by attor­ney Roman-Knut Seger, man­ag­ing direc­tor of BDO Restruc­tur­ing GmbH. “All par­ties involved are very sat­is­fied with this out­come of the restruc­tur­ing. The entry of a strate­gic investor strength­ens con­fi­dence in the com­pa­ny and its employ­ees and improves the long-term per­spec­tive,” says Roman-Knut Seger.

Thanks to the con­firmed plan solu­tion, the jobs at the Hainichen site and the name of Hart­mann GmbH will be retained. The goal — accord­ing to Mr. Hart­mann — is to open up new busi­ness areas, expand the work­force and get increased trac­tion on the expan­sion course. “Hart­mann GmbH is a good exam­ple of how a com­pa­ny can be repo­si­tioned through insol­ven­cy in self-admin­is­tra­tion. After all, no one knows the busi­ness, the cus­tomers and the specifics of the mar­ket bet­ter than the man­age­ment and the employ­ees who have been with the com­pa­ny for many years. For this rea­son, it often makes sense for the oper­a­tional busi­ness to remain in the hands of the man­age­ment for the dura­tion of the insol­ven­cy pro­ceed­ings — sup­ple­ment­ed by the nec­es­sary restruc­tur­ing exper­tise,” con­tin­ues attor­ney Seger.

New start thanks to investor

A cen­tral aspect of the adopt­ed insol­ven­cy plan is the sup­port pro­vid­ed by the investor mem­bra­Pure. The struc­tured investor search was car­ried out by the Dres­den-based man­age­ment con­sul­tan­cy ABG Con­sult­ing-Part­ner GmbH & Co. KG was respon­si­ble. Its man­ag­ing direc­tor Simon Leopold is pleased with what has been achieved: “We held talks with sev­er­al inter­est­ed par­ties, and the inter­est was great despite the insol­ven­cy of the com­pa­ny. The investor mem­bra­Pure also comes from the med­ical tech­nol­o­gy sec­tor and was already a strate­gic part­ner of the Hainichen-based com­pa­ny in the past. From the con­nec­tion to Hart­mann, mem­bra­Pure hopes above all for joint syn­er­gies and strate­gic advan­tages,” says Leopold.

Cause of insolvency: loss of a major customer

The medi­um-sized com­pa­ny spe­cial­izes in the man­u­fac­ture of water treat­ment sys­tems for ultra-pure water as well as clean­ing, dis­in­fec­tion and dry­ing machines, for exam­ple for clin­ics, med­ical prac­tices or lab­o­ra­to­ries. The Hainichen-based com­pa­ny is also a ser­vice part­ner in the med­ical tech­nol­o­gy sec­tor. The eco­nom­ic cri­sis of the com­pa­ny was main­ly caused by the loss of a major cus­tomer. The result­ing lack of sales could not be com­pen­sat­ed quick­ly enough for the com­pa­ny. When it became fore­see­able that Hart­mann GmbH would no longer be able to meet its pay­ment oblig­a­tions in full, an appli­ca­tion was made for court-ordered self-admin­is­tra­tion pro­ceed­ings. The restruc­tur­ing plan drawn up in the course of the pro­ceed­ings, which was unan­i­mous­ly accept­ed by the cred­i­tors, now offers all those involved the chance of a vital new start.