The situation: Core business disruption from e-mobility
The company produced mechanical components for combustion engines — connecting rods, crankshaft bearing shells and timing-chain parts — with three German OEMs as main customers (~85% revenue share). Three plants in NRW, 410 employees, €68M revenue, 60 years of family ownership.
With the 2035 combustion end-date and the accelerated e-mobility transition at the OEMs, 30% of the order book vanished within 18 months. The owner family had still invested €12M in 2021 in modernising combustion lines — a misallocation in hindsight.
In Q3 2023 the protective shield petition (§270b InsO) was filed. The trustee initiated an orderly M&A process with a minimum price and location/employment covenants. We submitted an indicative offer two weeks after opening of the proceedings.
What we did: Protective-shield acquisition + 14-month repositioning
Phase 1 — Acquisition (weeks 1–11): Structured asset deal out of protective shield with the trustee. Liabilities towards creditors' committee, banks and social insurance were settled in the insolvency plan. We acquired the operating fixed assets, brand rights, customer contracts and 410 of 410 employment relationships.
Phase 2 — Stabilisation (months 1–6): Immediate reduction of combustion lines to 60% of pre-insolvency capacity. Negotiation with the three OEM main customers on minimum offtake volumes for combustion components until 2030 (against price adjustment). Initiation of a €4M investment programme in e-mobility components (rotor lamination packs and e-motor structural components).
Phase 3 — Swing (months 7–14): Commissioning of the first e-mobility production line at Plant 1. First OEM orders for e-components signed — €18M order volume over 4 years. Closure of the least profitable combustion line at Plant 2 (consolidated into Plant 1, no operational redundancies).
Result: EBITDA margin swings from −6% to +4%. E-mobility share of the order book grows from 0% to 22%. Combustion share declines in an orderly fashion rather than catastrophically.
Signature element: OEM negotiation on the combustion sunset
The decisive lever was not the e-mobility investment. It was the OEM negotiations on the orderly sunset of the combustion business.
The three OEMs had their own interest in an orderly wind-down: a disorderly insolvency of our supplier would have caused production stoppages at their end. We used this interest to secure minimum-offtake commitments until 2030 — against price adjustments of 8–12% that made the remaining combustion block profitable.
These OEM agreements were the substrate for the e-mobility investment: they secured cash flow for the next 6 years while we built the new product portfolio. Without that negotiation a 14-month swing would not have been feasible.