In a communication to the market published on Sunday (21 July), the business said it was informing the market of its intention due to a short-term cash shortage of its subsidiary Inapa Deutschland in the amount of €12m (£10.1m) for which no financing solution was found within the period established in accordance with German law.
This was “despite all the timely efforts made by Inapa’s management with creditors and shareholders”, in particular with parent Inapa IPG’s largest shareholder, Parpública – Participações Públicas (SGPS), S.A, which holds around 45% of the share capital.
Inapa Deutschland was therefore set to file for insolvency on Monday (22 July) and Inapa IPG’s board of directors said that, aware of the immediate impacts this insolvency filling would have on Inapa IPG, they concluded – after analysing the company’s financial situation – that Inapa IPG was “consequently and imminently insolvent”, and they therefore decided to present Inapa IPG to insolvency under Portuguese law, which was set to be formalised “in the coming days”.
In a subsequent filing the following day Inapa IPG informed the market that several board members were resigning while Frederico João de Moser Lupi, chairman of the board of directors and CEO, also submitted his resignation to the chairman of the audit committee.
Inapa was founded in 1965 and employs almost 1,500 staff. It has operations in Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Turkey, and Angola. It previously had a UK-based subsidiary, Tavistock Paper, but this was sold to paper merchant Gerald Judd in 2011.
The company reported sales of €968.7m in 2023, down 20% year-on-year, and posted net losses of €8m, after making net profits of €17.8m in 2022.
In the CEO’s message, Lupi had described 2023 as “a rough and challenging year”.
He said: “The European Union’s economy has decelerated once again and the scenario was featured by wars, natural disasters, and a restrictive monetary overview.
“As regards the paper industry, the demand for paper has decreased substantially, due to a destocking process across all value chain, as to a real reduction of demand.”
