Wuppermann sells its perforated tube and sheet metal engineered products businesses to Lafayette Mittelstand Capital
- Acquired business renamed WECUBEX in summer 2018 -
Leverkusen / Frankfurt on the Main, 15 November 2017 – The Wuppermann Group, a medium-sized family business with 145 years of experience in steel processing, has signed a sales contract for five of its subsidiaries on 9 November 2017. Three of the five companies devoted entirely to sheet metal processing are located in Thalgau in Austria, Holýšov in the Czech Republic, and Herbolzheim, Germany. Additionally included in the sale are the Wuppermann Intralogistik GmbH, also located in Herbolzheim, Germany, and the Wuppermann Rohrtechnik GmbH in Burgbernheim, Germany, where not only sheet metal products but also perforated tubes and steel tubes are produced. More than 600 workers are employed at the sites. The buyer is the German Lafayette Mittelstand Capital, a privately backed investment firm, industry agnostic and with a focus on mid-sized companies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The closing shall take effect as of Jan 1, 2018. Both parties of the deal have agreed to keep the details of the sale confidential. The new business, though owned by Lafayette, will initially keep the name Wuppermann.
Wuppermann informed its employees about the planned sale of the five companies at the beginning of 2017 in the course of strategic restructuring. “Following detailed discussions and intensive negotiations we've found a new home for Wuppermann's sheet metal production, as sheet metal processing is not anymore one of Wuppermann’s core areas of competence and we are not able to give it the attention it requires. We're confident that Lafayette will take steps to ensure the long-term competitiveness of the business, so that employees can continue to enjoy job security in the future, and customers can depend on a reliable partnership and high quality products”, declared Dr. C. L. Theodor Wuppermann, spokesperson of the board of Wuppermann AG. “As a family business with a long tradition, we always make decisions with our responsibility to future generations in mind. Our expertise lies in the processing of hot-rolled steel strip. We are now increasing our expertise in this field even further with the opening of our state-of-the-art flat products factory in Hungary. The sale of the sheet metal working sites will enable us to focus all our energies on our core business once again.”
Lafayette explains: “We are specialised in long-term involvement in mid-sized enterprises in the region of Austria, Germany and die Switzerland. We look for investment opportunities at companies, which have achieved an excellent, sustainable market position and find themselves in a turnaround situation. Our involvement as a company is not only financial but also when necessary operational. We see Wuppermann's sheet metal production as a business which fits our philosophy, a manufacturing company which is well established in the market and which we are keen to develop further, through excellent operational management, into a leading company in the sector. The Wuppermann group has taken the business in a good direction in recent years, so we have an excellent basis on which we – together with the employees – can develop the business further.”