PPS. Imaging-Gruppe

GENERAL INFORMATION

Industry:

printing industry

Employees:

approx. 300

Turnover:

roughly EUR 41 million

Region:

international

Initial situation

The Hamburg-based PPS. Imaging Group (hereinafter: PPS) had been the German market leader for large format digital printing and one of the leading large format digital printing service providers in Europe. At the time of the application, PPS, which was founded in 1971 and had throughout grown through bolt-on acquisitions, employed around 300 people at its sites in Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

Due to significant declines in turnover and liquidity as a result of the Corona pandemic in combination with the already difficult general conditions in the printing industry, the management of the PPS. Imaging Group had to apply for the opening of insolvency proceedings for four German Group companies at the Hamburg District Court at the beginning of June 2020. The two foreign companies in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands were not affected by the insolvency applications but were also significantly affected by the country-specific consequences of the Corona pandemic as well as by internal group interdependencies, so that short-term solutions had to be achieved here as well.

In addition to the ongoing restructuring process, Restrukturierungspartner were exclusively commissioned with the implementation of a structured investor process with the aim of finding an investor solution with economic effect for the business operations at the planned opening of insolvency proceedings at the beginning of August 2020.

Services

In close cooperation with the insolvency administrators Dr. Dietmar Penzlin (law firm Schmidt-Jortzig Petersen Penzlin) and Dr Matthias Wolgast (law firm Münzel & Böhm), Restrukturierungspartner sought investors for the takeover of the entire group or individual companies in an internationally oriented M&A process. Extraordinarily quickly, in less than two months after filing for insolvency, investors were found for all individual companies of the group - including the two international subsidiaries - within the framework of a highly competitive investor process right up to the end, so that the business operations of PPS could continue and more than 200 jobs in Germany and abroad could be preserved.