With Gigaset, a real traditional German company is going bankrupt. What’s next for the company and its customers?
The company Gigaset, which was founded in 1900, had to file for bankruptcy. The reason for this was an “unexpected and significant decline in sales in the second half of the year”. Business forecasts that had already been made had to be scaled down significantly. Negotiations with possible lenders failed, which is why an application to open insolvency proceedings had to be submitted on Tuesday (September 19th).
Gigaset files for bankruptcy
The Gigaset company is best known for its landline telephones. In the recent past, the company, based in Bocholt in North Rhine-Westphalia, also manufactured smartphones and alarm systems, among other things. After the bankruptcy, the company, which has around 850 employees, wants to be financially rehabilitated. But what exactly does that mean for the company?
When asked by TECHBOOK, Gigaset confirmed that despite the bankruptcy, production will continue unchanged for the time being. This applies to “the development, production and sales activities […]. The aim is to sustainably restructure the company’s economic basis – as part of the process, the profitability of each individual business area will be intensively examined,” said a company spokesman.
CEO Magnus Ekerot, who only came to Gigaset from Bosch at the beginning of the year, sees the former management as being to blame for the situation. First and foremost, it was probably not possible to absorb the decline in demand for cordless telephones. The division still represents an important part of the business model. Other areas such as smartphones could not absorb this.
What does this mean for employees and customers?
The top priority now goes to the company’s employees, who we want to provide comprehensive information and protection. The Federal Employment Agency will pay the salaries until the end of November as part of the insolvency loss benefit. We are also in close contact with suppliers, business partners and customers.
Significant cuts in support or sales are not to be expected – at least for the time being. According to Ekerot, they now want to put the company back on a solid economic basis. Insolvency would give Gigaset the possibility of fundamental restructuring.
Gigaset was part of Siemens until 2008. According to the LSEG (London Stock Exchange Group), the Chinese investor Pan Sutong currently holds around 72 percent of Gigaset’s shares through his company Goldin Financial. He acquired this in 2013; Part of the investor agreement back then was to strengthen other divisions such as smartphones. This is likely to be Gigaset’s direction in the future in order to be more profitable again.
source
- Gigaset (accessed on September 20, 2023)