Specialty paper producer Crown Van Gelder has run into financial difficulties. The company filed for bankruptcy with the responsible court of Noord-Holland.
Dutch specialty paper producer Crown Van Gelder (CVG) has run into financial difficulties. The company reported to have filed for the opening of bankruptcy proceedings with the District Court of Noord-Holland in Haarlem since “payment obligations could no longer be met.” The court opened the insolvency proceedings on 23 January and appointed Rocco Mulder of Pot Jonker Advocaten and Alfons Dunselman of Shenkelveld Advocaten as insolvency administrators.
Despite a positive operating result last year, the paper manufacturer was unable to overcome the liquidity bottleneck resulting from a combination of various factors, CVG writes in a press release on 24 January. Above all, the company cites a sharp increase in energy and raw material costs as well as a sudden drop in orders, which in turn resulted in an “unusually long production downtime”. In addition, the continuing uncertainty about future market developments had an impact.
Crown Van Gelder has a staff of 250 and operates two paper machines at the company’s paper mill in Velsen. The mill produces about 160,000 tpy of specialty papers for graphic and packaging applications, such as high speed inkjet printing papers, label papers and packaging paper with barrier functions. More than 90 per cent of the company’s output is sold on export markets.
According to the insolvency administrators and CVG’s management, all 250 employees are still on board and continue receiving their salaries, but paper production was suspended several weeks ago and is still standing still.
The company’s management board and the two insolvency administrators are now in talks with several interested parties with respect to the possible continuation of activities at CVG. The declared aim was to restart as soon as possible the operations at the paper mill, Mr Mulder said in an interview with EUWID. Crown Van Gelder is currently for sale and sales talks have already been held with the first interested companies from the Dutch and German paper industry, Mulder explained.
Interested parties have time until 3 February, to submit a concrete purchase offer for CVG. If no buyer can be found by then, the administrators will have to liquidate the paper mill and sell the paper machines as a last resort, Mr Mulder said. However, based on the statements of interested companies, Mr Mulder said he was optimistic that Crown Van Gelder can be kept in bu-
siness.
