Major shareholder Wim de Pundert is taking over the helm at motorhome manufacturer Knaus Tabbert, which is suffering from a lack of orders. The Dutchman is to take on a dual role as CEO and CFO with immediate effect. as the company announced on Friday
. De Pundert was previously a member of the supervisory board.
The company has thus found a replacement for the CEO and CFO positions: Most recently, CFO Caroline Schürmann left the company in February, and CEO Wolfgang Speck took over her duties – until he also left at the end of October “for personal reasons” and only two board members remained .
In the statement, de Pundert also announced: “With the support of our management team, our employees and our stakeholders, we will take measures to ensure healthy profitability with adequate production volumes.”
Lack of utilization causes problems for companies
The company from Jandelsbrunn, near Passau, is one of Germany’s leading caravan and motor home manufacturers. Last year, Knaus Tabbert achieved sales of 1.4 billion euros.
However, the company is in crisis: Due to a lack of capacity utilization, the company temporarily suspended production at its headquarters and in the Hungarian Nagyoroszi factory at the beginning of this week. The company announced this two days ago. The majority of the approximately 4,000 employees are employed in the two plants. However, work is still underway at two other locations.
Investors initially reacted positively to the new personnel; the shares were recently up 13 percent on Tradegate. The company has been listed on the stock exchange since September 2020. The issue price was 58 euros. In April 2021, the price reached its peak at almost 74 euros – it has been going down ever since.
The company lowered its forecast in July and October, thereby causing significant price declines. At the end of October, the investment bank Jefferies canceled its buy rating, causing further losses. In November, the RV maker’s stock plummeted after the announcement of production stops. This year the price fell by just over 66 percent.