The battle to rescue the beleaguered German airframer Grob has hit the skids after the company was forced to file for insolvency on 1 November having failed to secure the necessary investment to continue operations.
The drastic move comes less than a month after Grob revealed it was on the brink of solvency, having secured a memorandum of understanding with an unnamed financial backer.
The Tussenhausen-Mattsies-based company, developer of the SPn light business jet, entered preliminary insolvency on 18 August after its main investor withdrew financial support due to delays in the SPn's certification programme. Grob's Swiss holding company is also expected put into insolvency in the coming days.
"The Swiss and German administrators and the entire management team of Grob Aerospace have been working jointly and relentlessly on a solution to secure investment in the near future," says Grob chief executive Niall Olver.
"We have been in discussion with a significant number of potential investors around the world," Olver says. "These interested parties included financial investors, as well as strategic investors already active in the aviation industry. A number of them have performed a due diligence process and are well advanced in the commercial and contractual negotiations. However, we have unfortunately not been able to finalise the transaction at this stage, and within the timeframe allowed by the court."
Olver says he is continuing the ongoing discussions with investors. "We still hope that a new investor will buy the assets of Grob Aerospace and will be in a position to continue the SPn and the training aircraft programmes, and to re-hire as many as possible of the employees under a new legal entity," he says.
Source: Flight International
