One of Germany’s leading providers of guillotines and other finishing equipment is to reorganise under the protection of the Frankfurt district court.
The Polar Group stresses that it is not insolvent, but that it has been hit by supply chain bottlenecks affecting delivery of controls and other components for the cutting machines it makes. This has affected production and led to a decline in sales.
The company’s guillotines are sold through Heidelberg with 80% of production exported from the 50,000m2 plant in Hofheim near Frankfurt where there are 380 employees.
They were told of the action at staff meetings on their return from the annual shutdown for holidays.
The company is under the control of Dr Robert Schiebe from restricting specialists Schiebe and Partners. The court has also appointed a trustee to oversee the process.
“We continue to work undisturbed with all of our approximately 380 employees, fulfill all our obligations and continue the existing customer relationships. The salaries will be paid by the employment agency until the end of October,” says Schiebe.
Polar has expanded from its core market of guillotines in finishing for packaging and is a major provider of machines for producing frozen pizza packaging. But is for guillotine that the company will always be best known.
Group sales increased last year and again in the first half of this year following the impact of pandemic. It is the lingering effects of that on components that have led to the cashflow problems the company is now suffering. Polar group managing director Michael Wombacher says: “Delivery bottlenecks for controls and other components have now significantly reduced the production volume because we cannot deliver almost finished machines to customers. In addition, customers are reluctant to place new orders because we can no longer schedule deliveries.”
Schiebe adds: “After the slump in deliveries, the reduced order intake and the uncertain development, the Polar Group went under the protective umbrella at an early stage. This facilitates rapid and sustainable restructuring. The group still has enough air and is not insolvent.
“In the next few days and weeks we will be talking to everyone involved, such as employees, customers, suppliers and banks are holding talks. After all, everyone should have an interest in the continuation of the Polar Group. That’s why I’m confident that we’ll restructure the company in the coming months and keep jobs.”
The company points to physical assets like the factory on what would be prime development land and its position as the world’s largest provider of guillotines to the printing industry.
