Car supplier
Webasto rescue plan agreed – the first money will flow soon
Auto supplier Webasto is in an imbalance, the renovation negotiations lasted considerably longer than expected. After a negotiating marathon, the board and workforce can now breathe a sigh of relief.
After long negotiations, the rescue package for the battered car supplier Webasto is. The conversations of the board, owners, banks and participating car manufacturers have now been completed, as it was said from industrial circles. The financing package is reportedly a volume of almost two billion euros. The first partial amounts are to be paid out in the coming days. The only thing missing is the final written elaboration of the contracts by the commissioned law firm. Webasto did not give a statement on request.
Monthly test of patience for the board and workforce
The most important products from the car supplier based in Stockdorf in Stockdorf with a good 15,000 employees are sliding and panoramic roofs. The chief negotiator on the webasto side was the new CEO Jörg Buchheim, which has only been in office since March, and the restructuring board member Johann Stohner and CFO Jörg Bremer appointed in January.
The negotiations had dragged on much longer than hoped for the webasto chiefs. Actually, the renovation plan should have finally been closed in the late spring. Now the family business founded in 1901 has a financial framework for the hoped -for recovery in the next few years. There was a basic cleaning in July, but then the negotiations continued. One reason was tough conversations with VW. Another sticking point, according to the “Wirtschaftswoche”, was the transfer of business shares of the owner families to an external trustee. In the meantime, Bavaria’s Minister of Economic Affairs Hubert Aiwanger (Free Voters) had also switched on.
High debts and problems in China
The group is now in debt with over a billion euros. On the one hand, there have been failure with new products such as charging stations for electric cars in recent years. Webasto had already sold this deficient business again in early 2024. Apart from that, webasto – like other suppliers – suffers from the falling sales figures for German car manufacturers in China. VW alone delivered almost 1.3 million million cars in the People’s Republic last year. Webasto is one of the German companies that have been very relating to the Chinese market in the past decade.
The car manufacturers were involved in the renovation negotiations because VW and Co. have to plan their own production. In addition to VW, BMW was involved in the talks.
dpa
Source: Stern
