German car seat manufacturer Recaro sold to Italian investor

The booth of the aircraft seat manufacturer Recaro at the Aircraft Interiors Expo. Recaro, a long-established manufacturer of seats for cars of all types based in southern Germany, has been taken over by an Italian investor. Jens Büttner/dpa-Zentralbild/ZB

Recaro, a long-established manufacturer of seats for cars of all types based in southern Germany, has been taken over by an Italian investor.

Production will be relocated to the Turin region and the German production site will be permanently closed, a spokeswoman said on Thursday. She added that 215 people were employed there, and only a small number of those jobs will be retained.

The buyer of Recaro Automotive GmbH is the Proma Group, an automotive supplier which specializes in the production of seat structures, body assemblies and chassis suspensions. It has a turnover of €1.1 billion ($911 million).

A spokesman for the insolvency administrator confirmed the takeover by the buyer, and said the contract has already been signed.
The Proma Group will retain several employees from the original sales and engineering departments of Recaro.

Alessandro Lieb, from the IG Metall union, said that the takeover by Proma means that more than 170 people will lose their jobs.

Recaro Automotive GmbH recently had a turnover of almost €50 million. The company has been manufacturing car seats for sports cars for decades and filed for bankruptcy a few months ago following the loss of a major order.