German investor interested in insolvent Romanian cable producer Romcab

Bongard, a German family-owned producer of equipment for the cable industry, wants to buy the production lines of the Romanian power and fiber optic cable producer Romcab, which went into insolvency in 2017, Profit.ro reported. Bongard has submitted an offer for the assets.

Romcab turned to the LXM investment fund to analyze the company’s situation and find investors to get involved in financing it. Romcab’s insolvency is the largest by the volume of debts owed to creditors, some EUR 223 million.

The company, which is listed on the local stock exchange and controlled by Romanian businessman Zoltan Prosszer, had big expansion plans and convinced several big local and international banks to finance it. At the end of 2018, the company had EUR 71 million worth of loans to repay to its lenders, including state-owned Eximbank and CEC Bank, as well as Banca Transilvania, Piraeus Bank, Banca Feroviara, BCR and Moscow-based International Investment Bank (IIB). The total debts at the end of 2018 amounted to over EUR 200 million over two times higher than the company's total assets, valued at EUR 82 million.

Romcab entered insolvency at its own request in February 2017. The securities exchange fined more officials of the company for irregularities in the financial statements submitted to the stock exchange.

In 2018, the company recorded a turnover of EUR 61 million and EUR 67 million losses, due to the reevaluation of stocks, according to the 2018 annual report.

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