Bogner ski manufacturer insolvent

Schwabe & Baer Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH, based in Unterföhring, Bavaria, has been producing the exclusive ski and snowboard brands "Bogner" and "Indigo", which are high-priced, with great taste for years. Besides skis and snowboards, the company also produces and sells related accessories such as helmets, goggles, etc. Now we receive the news that the company has filed for insolvency at the Munich District Court. Under the supervision of a law firm, the company is to be reorganized and a new investor found.

 

The company writes: Schwabe & Baer Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH, which produces high-quality skis and ski equipment under the "INDIGO" brand, among others, filed for insolvency with the Munich District Court on April 14, 2020. The insolvency court appointed the restructuring expert Rolf G. Pohlmann from the Munich law firm Pohlmann Hofmann as provisional insolvency administrator on April 20, 2020. Under his supervision, operations will continue and the company is to be put on a restructuring course. Pohlmann sees good opportunities for this. Together with the management, he is looking for an investor, and there are already initial interested parties.

The company develops, manufactures and distributes high-quality winter sports articles such as skis, ski poles, snowboards, ski helmets and goggles, in particular under its own luxury brand "INDIGO" and under license from the fashion company "Bogner". In addition, the company manufactures and sells ski and bike helmets as well as sports glasses for the fashion and sports brands "O'Neill", "St. Moritz" and, most recently, for FC Bayern Munich under corresponding license agreements. The development company was founded in 2003 and is based in Unterföhring near Munich.

Good prospects for a turnaround of the company
"We were able to get a picture of the company's economic situation immediately after the insolvency application. Intensive discussions have already been held with the management on the current measures to be taken. Even though we are only at the beginning of the insolvency proceedings, I see good chances for a successful restructuring of the company," explains the provisional insolvency administrator Rolf G. Pohlmann. According to Pohlmann, it is "gratifying" that INDIGO filed for insolvency at an early stage.

This leaves time to explore all restructuring options. Due to the great know-how of the founders and managing directors, the grown customer relationships and the special market position of INDIGO, Pohlmann is currently optimistic about the restructuring prospects.

Following a joint decision by the management and the preliminary insolvency administrator, operations will continue with the existing team until further notice. "Now, in addition to maintaining operations, it is also important to convince the long-standing licensors and suppliers and, above all, the customers to remain loyal to the INDIGO brand," says the provisional insolvency administrator Pohlmann. At the same time, he appeals to the customers: "Every new order is an important piece in the mosaic to save the company". The factory outlet in Unterföhring is also to be reopened once the officially ordered "Corona" restrictions have ended.

Corona crisis caused sales to slump
According to management estimates, one of the reasons for the insolvency was the insufficient revenues from business with licensed products in the so-called mid-price segment. Contrary to initial expectations, the high investment costs were ultimately not matched by corresponding sales. This winter, the effects of the Corona crisis were compounded by the significantly shortened ski season, which caused sales to slump further. In previous years, INDIGO had still realized considerable business with reorders. Despite the application for short-time work, the insolvency application could therefore not be avoided. "By filing for insolvency at an early stage, however, all essential company assets were preserved, which significantly improves the prospects for a stable continuation solution with a new investor," says Pohlmann, explaining the procedure.

Concentration on own brand and cooperation with Bogner
"INDIGO's priority under the restructuring concept will be to focus again on cooperation with Bogner and on strengthening its own brand," explain the two managing directors Schwabe and Baer. At ISPO 2020 in Munich, the company has already presented an innovative new helmet concept that caused quite a stir among experts. "We will continue to push this in-house development with vigor. The new helmet could also be marketed in a modified form as an e-bike and bike helmet." Insolvency administrator Rolf G. Pohlmann is therefore positive about the future: "This and other in-house developments give hope for a long-term positive development of the brand. The INDIGO products are extremely innovative, high-tech and also really beautiful. We can build on this." The company's statement ends with this.

What mistakes has the company made in the past?
It seems easy at the moment to blame everything that goes wrong on the Corona crisis, but not all companies in the industry are affected, so the company must have made mistakes itself. What are they? Unfortunately, there's no word on that. The question is whether focusing on the luxury segment is the right thing to do. Other ski brands such as Lacroix and Zai have also gotten into big trouble because of this. And the company also seems to me to have made big mistakes in marketing. The company preferred to work with magazines like Playboy instead of portals for skis and snowboards, although exactly such portals have real prospective buyers in contrast to entertainment and erotic magazines. If the people in management were a bit more practical again and didn't go all "etepete" and threw this "oh how posh we are..." philosophy overboard and addressed their target group in a pragmatic and modern way, success would probably be greater, awareness and popularity as well as sales would be better. The company also seems to be still far away from social media, zero posts on Instagram, Facebook we did not find, and the homepage is also obviously little noticed, the rating platform alexa.com, which belongs to Amazon, does not even have the website in the ranking, that is really a disaster. Maybe younger people should take the helm in marketing. I think the company is now also atoning for past failures, which should be rectified as quickly as possible if the exclusive ski and snowboard brand wants to have a real chance of being successful in the long term.