TFL clarify position

Dr Peter Amann and Eugen Katzenstein, Joint-CEO’s of TFL Group confirmed to Leather International that the Management of the company wish to sell the company in the New Year and confirmed that the stakeholders are happy with the current status and health of the business.

‘We are hoping to enter into a structured sales process in which our stakeholders will reach an acceptable price for the business’, said Eugen Katzenstein. ‘If an acceptable price is agreed by the stakeholders then TFL will take on new ownership.’

‘For TFL to serve the leather industry in the future it is necessary to have a change in ownership of the company’, Dr Amann said. Private Equity firm, Odewald & Cie, currently own TFL.

TFL have around 1000 employees globally and are currently investing several million euro in a number of their regional production facilities as well as upgrading the company’s IT system.

‘For TFL it is business as usual and we will continue to manufacture and sell leather chemicals from beamhouse to finishing for our customers worldwide. Despite uncertainty within the euro zone, high hide prices and a weakness in some markets we still see good prospects in 2012 for the luxury, high-end leather market and also for automotive segment’, Dr Amann told Leather International.

TFL said that some of the comments in the Bloomberg article were questionable and misleading and that the article was not based on an official TFL statement.

Eugen Katzenstein said that when Odewald & Cie acquired the business in 2007 they passed on finance of around €35 million on to the company rather than €65 million quoted in the Bloomberg story. He said that this is a common arrangement for private equity companies to leverage finance. ‘TFL has always had and continues to have the full support of the banks. In fact, we have unused lines of credit and good liquidity in the business. It is a financially sound business’, he said.