The Schwarzwälder Textil-Werke Heinrich Kautzmann (STW Kautzmann) from Schenkenzell, a company of the Kautzmann Group, is taking over essential assets of the insolvent Advansa Manufacturing, a leading supplier of polyester fibers based in Hamm, Germany, in agreement with Insolvency administrator Holger Rhode.

The agreement was signed on Monday, May 15, and concerns only Advansa Manufacturing which operates the factory in Hamm-Uentrop, specialized in short-cut fibers for the Paper industry (other companies of the Advansa group continue to operate independently as before).

The investor will take over the 65 employees of the company, who were originally supposed to finish production by the end of June 2023. Thus, preventing the closure of the polyester fiber production in Hamm, which had previously been decided in March 2023 due to the lack of economic perspectives of the GmbH, after an insolvency filing back in October 2022.

The continuation will initially be realized within the framework of an agency agreement with the insolvent Advansa Manufacturing GmbH. “By the end of the year, the necessary investments have been made in order to operate with the newly founded Engineered Fiber Solutions GmbH under the umbrella of STW,” explaied a representative, “In the future we will develop, produce and sell technical special fibers with a focus on the paper and nonwovens industry,”

All parties pulled together for this success: Employee representatives, staff, management and insolvency administrators in a special team effort.

STW Kautzmann is a mid-size, family business which manufactures short-cut fibers for the construction and plastics industries, among others.

The new investor for production operations in Hamm Uentrop has no direct impact on the continuing business operations of the other Advansa Group companies, both Advansa Marketing GmbH which will continue its operations as a supplier for all of its European and worldwide customers, and the Advansa BV in the Netherlands, which owns the relevant IP and trademark rights.

The Advansa group today with its affiliated company Asia Pacific Fibers (APF) is a significant international group with large polyester fiber and filament production capacities in Indonesia, as well several ongoing manufacturing cooperations and technology agreements with OEM producers, in some cases dating back over 20 years to the time of DuPont.

Advansa Marketing GmbH will therefore continue its daily work and fulfil orders in the usual way especially for the fiber-fillings and nonwovens businesses. Customers in the paper industry will also continue to receive services relating to short cut fiber supply including various options.