Pilsen Tools, which has been in bankruptcy since November 2019, has a new owner, the IBZ group from Nýřany in the northern Pilsen region.
The new owner took over the machines, the production hall, which underwent extensive modernization in 2018, and about 50 employees.
The sale of the company’s property outside the auction to the highest bid from the tender was approved last June by the Regional Court in Pilsen. “The whole process of monetizing the debtor’s assets took place relatively quickly and without any complications,” said Petra Spáčilová from the Deloitte restructuring team.
Pilsen Tools has been operating in the metal production and tooling market for over 20 years.
After an unsuccessful attempt to find a strategic partner, she filed for insolvency in June 2019. The then executive Michal Štilip stated that the factory could not be operated without foreign capital. The 70% shareowner was a 72-year-old Swiss woman, and the three Czech partners had ten percent each and did not want to invest other necessary capital in the company. In November 2019, the company owed 130 creditors 111 million crowns.
From the beginning, the insolvency administrator David Jánošík preferred to sell the company in operation. Last November, he said that since she was no longer undergoing slimming, there was no reason to close her and lay off the remaining 50 employees, a third of June, when the company filed for insolvency. It had smaller short-term orders, monthly sales of over four million, and no longer generated a loss.
Secured creditors – ČSOB and the Czech Social Security Administration then demanded 69 million crowns from Pilsen Tools. According to the valuation, the company had long-term assets worth 85 million crowns, of which 65 million were real estate. The central part was a large production hall in the middle of the former Škoda Plzeň.