Case Study PTC Germany Fish Wholesale – Current Market Value Appraisal & Liquidation/Private Sale

Current Market Value Appraisal & Liquidation/Private Sale, Fish Wholesaler

Founded in 2009, Product Trade Centre (PTC Germany) GmbH, wholesaler and importer of high-quality fish and seafood with its own production and processing facilities in Germany and Serbia, had to file for preliminary insolvency at the Krefeld District Court in March 2018.

In April, Lueders & Partner GmbH was commissioned by the provisional insolvency administrator Dr. Jan-Philipp Hoos of the law firm White & Case to prepare a comprehensive value assessment of the company’s machinery and equipment, production and office equipment as well as the vehicle fleet.

Due to the particular situation involving perishable products and a wide geographical area, a further order to establish actual stocks was received at the end of April with a total of 217 samples at 28 locations in Germany, the Netherlands, France and Poland. As PTC was no longer able to dispose of the inventories in an orderly manner due to the company’s internal structures, we offered to enable the existing inventory to be disposed of by means of an accompanying pre-financing by the receptive warehouse storekeepers.

As a result, in May 2018 the order was placed to utilize the calculated stocks of approximately 4,300 tons of high-quality frozen fish products through a private sale. Thanks to extensive industry research as well as marketing and sales on the international market, we were able to implement our step-by-step recovery order very successfully.

Meanwhile, goods continued to be produced at the Bremerhaven location and the M&A process was led and successfully concluded by the responsible insolvency administrator Dr. Hoos (White & Case) in cooperation with the corporate finance company Saxenhammer & Co.

After just three months of continued operations, he concluded the restructuring successfully by selling the company to the Bremen entrepreneur and food expert Christian Helms. The buyer is TFE GmbH (The Fish Experts), which has secured the Bremerhaven production site with approximately 80 employees.