Shrinking and saving
Baywa: Expert confirms ability to renovate
The Baywa Group, which is suffering from a mountain of debt, can be saved, says the restructuring expert – but only if parts of the company are sold.
According to the restructuring expert, the heavily indebted Baywa Group can save itself by downsizing. A second draft of the report commissioned in July confirms the “ability to restructure” the Munich company, which is suffering from a mountain of debt. Baywa announced this in a mandatory announcement for the stock exchange.
Foreign business in particular should become smaller
All four business areas of agriculture, building materials, energy and technology can therefore be retained, but the restructuring concept envisages the sale of “certain key, particularly international, investments”.
The experts also call for “organizational streamlining” and numerous operational savings measures. Another component that will bring in fresh money is the issue of new shares with subscription rights for existing shareholders. The renovation is scheduled to be completed at the end of December 2027.
Triple-digit million loss
Baywa, which emerged from the cooperative movement, is the largest German agricultural trader and is important for agriculture and food supply, especially in the south and east of Germany. The main shareholders are the holding companies of the Volks- and Raiffeisenbanken in Bavaria and Austria. In the first nine months, the net loss of the 101-year-old traditional company totaled almost 641 million euros. The financial regulator Bafin has been checking the 2023 annual results for almost three weeks because the company may have embellished its financial risks.
The Baywa crisis is exacerbated by the weak global economy. In the first nine months, both the agricultural business and renewable energies were largely poor; there was only growth in the fruit and vegetable trade and in the sale of agricultural machinery.
dpa
Source: Stern
