Article from Nordjyske | September 2022 | Salling Plast has a new owner. The company went bankrupt – now it is split into two – with one company in Hurup and one in Ranum.
The industrial company, Salling Plast in Hurup and Ranum, has been saved.
72 employees can breathe a sigh of relief.
Although the company Salling Plast A/S went bankrupt on Monday, the company has been bought by two new companies. At the same time, the employees are transferred to the new companies.
Therefore, there has also been no stoppage in production.
The new owner takes over.
The new owner is the former owner of Salling Plast A/S, Geert Winther Skovsgaard.
He continues the operation through the two new companies he founded on Monday. The same day as the old company went bankrupt.
He explains that it had to go fast because it was a matter of saving the company and the jobs.
Although he is an experienced businessman, this is the first time he has gone bankrupt with his company.
– But there was nothing else to do, he explains.
– The company would have continuously accumulated a much larger debt if we did not do something dramatic. Geert Winther Skovsgaard says that when faced with such a choice, there is simply nothing else to do.
Bought Salling Plast in 2019
It was only in 2019 that he bought two-thirds of the more than 50-year-old family-owned company, Salling Plast. He took over the remaining third of the company in October 2020. In September 2021, he inaugurated the newly renovated factory in Hurup.
He had never dreamed that he would have to rebuy his own business two years later.
– It has been violent, he says.
Among other things was corona, a shortage of goods, price increases on everything, and the war in Ukraine. It was too big a mouthful.
Difficulty with subsidiary
But what was ultimately decisive was Salling Plast’s subsidiary in Belarus.
At the end of the annual accounts, Salling Plast had a receivable of DKK 24.9 million from the subsidiary.
– The loss on our exit from Belarus was the main reason we had to give up, says Geert Winther Skovsgaard, who in the new structure does not include the Belarusian subsidiary in the new companies.
It is, therefore, no longer part of the Danish companies.
It is a significant amount.
Geert Winther Skovsgaard does not want to say how much it has cost to repurchase the business.
– I cannot comment on that due to the agreement with the receiver and the company’s mortgagees, but he says it is a reasonably large amount.
When you ask Geert Winther Skovsgaard about the bankruptcy itself and what it means that there are now creditors who are not getting their money, he says:
– I am deeply affected by that.
– We want to help
– I am incredibly humbled by the human and financial costs that follow in the wake of this. There, I should help everything and everyone to try to get back on their feet.
Of course, some will be in a lot of pain because they will take a loss with such a trade with us.
– We will do everything we can to help our many loyal creditors join the fight again so that they become part of the future. So over time, we will balance it out.
– That is the purpose in itself, he says.
Two companies, two factories
The two companies that take the companies forward are Salling Plast Energy ApS, which will be behind the company in Ranum. This is also where the main office is.
The other new company, Salling Plast Aqua ApS, is behind the company in Hurup.
The old company, Salling Plast A/S, changed its name on Monday to the Company of 4 September 2022 A/S, which has therefore been taken under bankruptcy proceedings at the Bankruptcy Court in Aalborg.
Very different
The companies in Hurup and in Ranum are no longer run by one company because the activities in the two productions are very different.
– The two companies only have in common that they manufacture items produced from pipes. The production is allocated to very different customers and segments; the production takes place in very different processes and dimensions, he says.
– It may be that investors in the future will have difficulty seeing the idea of having to invest both in products for district heating and in products that are part of fish farms or wastewater plants. Now we have separated it, he says.
In Ranum, one factory is a subcontractor to the district heating industry. The other factory – in Hurup – is a supplier of large, heavy constructions of pressure pipes for fish farms, sewerage, and surface water.
Geert Winther Skovsgaard continues not only as owner – but also as director of the two companies.