Hamburg insolvency partner Sven-Holger Undritz has been selected by the local court to act as insolvency administrator to furniture maker Schieder Moebel’s holding company.

The instruction is a coup for the firm as it is expected to take years to complete, with various subsidiaries filing for insolvency in addition to the parent company.

Schieder, which is Europe’s biggest furniture maker, narrowly avoided insolvency in April after securing loans from banks but since then some of its former directors have become embroiled in accusations of manipulating the company’s balance sheet.

Last-ditch attempts to sell the entire group collapsed late last month with potential investors concerned that the acquisition was too risky given the ongoing investigations. However, numerous law firms are expected to win roles for potential bidders interested in buying the subsidiaries.

The Schieder group employs more than 11,000 staff across 41 locations in Europe and Asia, servicing more than 5,000 customers.

Undritz’s objective is to help keep the business running, save jobs and find acquirers for the company’s assets to try to bring it out of insolvency. He is working alongside a large team from White & Case acting for various subsidiaries. Other insolvency partners involved include Klaus Pannen (Hamburg), Biner Baehr (Duesseldorf), Claudia Jansen (Frankfurt) and Bettina Schmudde (Hamburg).

Undritz told Legal Week: “We were trying to sell the whole group but a lot of potential investors said the whole operation was too risky, so now we are talking to investors and hope they will be willing to buy parts of the group. We have around 20 lawyers working around the clock on this. It is one of the biggest insolvency cases Germany has had for many years.”

In Germany insolvency lawyers are regularly appointed by the courts to act as administrators with Undritz serving in this capacity for local German courts since 1998.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer was the corporate adviser to Schieder until the insolvency proceedings started and is still acting for the company on some matters.

No insolvency filings have been made for profitable subsidiaries in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Italy, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Poland.

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