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Circle files for bankruptcy of Dutch printing companies
Circle Media Group has filed for bankruptcy of its Dutch printing companies, blaming Europe’s “challenging market circumstances” in a “shrinking” print industry.
The firm had suspended payments on 12th April for Roto Smeets BV, the holding company for Dutch printers Roto Smeets Deventer, Roto Smeets Weert and Senefelder Misset in Doetinchem.
A spokesman for Circle said they were suspended to explore a possible reorganisation of the companies, but this had proved unworkable.
Circle’s move comes after it sold its interest in European printing firm CPI to a private investor earlier this month, after less than a year of ownership.
Joost de Haas, executive director of Circle Media Group and c.e.o. of Roto Smeets Group, said: “These bankruptcies are the result of the current, very challenging market circumstances in the European printing industry.
“After a reasonable 2017, we saw a strong deterioration of the market in 2018. Paper prices increased with 15-20%, while our printing volumes decreased twice as fast as on average level. Under these circumstances, a planned reorganisation in the 2nd half of 2018 turned out to be insufficient during the first months in 2019. “
De Haas also said a Dutch employment law meant severance payments were now three times higher than in previous restructures.
He said: “Up to the introduction of this law, we were able to reduce our workforce with almost 1,000 employees in a socially-responsible manner, while bringing employees from work-to-work. This made it possible to adapt our capacity to our shrinking market and industry. The new Law works counterproductive and now forces us to lay-off our employees without a social plan. These bankruptcies could have been prevented with a more flexible law.
“With the administrator, we will now try to do the utmost to restart the bankrupt companies, while trying to secure as much jobs as possible and to continue the production for and service to our customers.”
The suspension of payment does not include the Dutch marketing operations in Amstelveen (MPG), the Belgian operation Corelio Printing or other companies in Austria, Germany, Spain and Hungary.
