The search for a new investor for the Opel partner Segula’s test facilities has failed. The operation of the engine and vehicle test benches in Rüsselsheim and also the test track in Rodgau-Dudenhofen, which was opened by Opel in 1966, will be stopped on Friday, Segula Germany boss Holger Jené told the F.A.Z. on Monday evening. With the liquidation of the insolvent testing division Segula Technologies GmbH (STG), its 330 employees will lose their jobs, 287 of them at the end of this week. A small team will remain until the end of the year to support the processing, said Segula. According to Jené, the engineering services business is not affected by the bankruptcy. Around 170 employees work in Rüsselsheim for this nationwide active division under the name Segula Technologies Services (STS). According to a company spokeswoman, Segula will completely abandon this location – where Germany boss Jené also has his office. The STS will continue to be present “in the Rüsselsheim region” in the future, but: “The exact location from 2026 has not yet been determined.” Segula is a tenant in the building complex previously used in Rüsselsheim; the company sold the property with around 55,000 square meters of total space to the investment company Iroko Zen at the end of 2023. Segula moved there in 2019 when the company, headquartered in France, took over the test facilities and parts of the development center at the Opel headquarters. The test track in Rodgau-Dudenhofen, however, remained owned by the car manufacturer; Segula Technologies only acted as the operator there. The test facility will be “temporarily shut down” from November 1st, an Opel spokesman said when asked. “Our negotiations with various potential future operators for Dudenhofen are ongoing.” Transfer company only in Dudenhofen The 82 STG employees previously employed there will be offered a change to a transfer company financed by Opel, said Jené. In Rüsselsheim, on the other hand, there is no money to set up a transfer company. Criticism of this came from the IG Metall union. “You make an offer to the employees in Dudenhofen, those in Rüsselsheim come away empty-handed,” said the managing director of IG Metall Darmstadt, Daniel Bremm. According to information from the F.A.Z. There is a risk that Opel’s test track employees could sue for continued employment with the car manufacturer – which still owns the test facility. It is unclear whether such lawsuits would be successful, but if the transfer company were to change, this would not even happen. Opel’s financing commitment should therefore be linked to the condition that a certain number of employees in Dudenhofen join the transfer company. Unfulfilled hopes In Rüsselsheim, too, many of the Segula employees who are now losing their jobs previously worked for Opel. Around 700 Opel employees changed to the new owner when the test center was sold in 2019. Segula had originally wanted to take over up to 2000. However, it soon became clear that business for the service provider in Rüsselsheim was not developing as well as hoped: in 2021, Segula cut around 100 jobs in the wake of the Corona crisis. In the same year, Germany boss Martin Lange had to vacate his post and was replaced by Jené. In the spring of 2024, Segula Germany reported progress. The then head of sales Andreas Prillmann said in an interview with the F.A.Z. the hope that the national company could break even. At that time, Jené announced the creation of 200 jobs nationwide.More on the topicInstead, the Germany managing director filed for self-administration insolvency for the testing division this summer. He cited the sales crisis in the auto industry as the main reason for the problems. Just a month ago, Jené was still confident that she would be able to find a buyer for at least some of the test facilities who could also take on around 100 employees. He attributed the failure of the talks to, among other things, the fact that the energy supply to the test center in Rüsselsheim was not permanently secured. It depends on the Opel plant’s network.
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