Karlie Group under pressure

The Karlie Group intends to relocate parts of its logistics division to Flamingo in Belgium, another company in the group, according to reports on various media channels. This would result in jobs being cut at the Haaren plant. The Verdi union believes this move could affect up to 110 employees, amounting to half of the workforce.
The group of companies, which belongs to the financial investor Perusa, is reacting to financial problems that have led to an accelerating drop in the price of SME bonds. Another change also took place at the top of the company at the end of last year. Michael Perlitz, who only came to the Karlie Group in the summer, was replaced by Andreas Spiegel, who previously acted as a consultant to the company. Dominik Müser, whose previous appointments were at chemicals manufacturer Hansa Group and stock-exchange-listed plastics specialist Balda prior to that, was brought in to oversee finance and controlling.
The Karlie Group announced a drop in sales of 11 per cent to € 49 mio for the first six months of 2014. Its net financial debt increased by around € 3 mio at the end of the first half-year to approx. € 23 mio. Losses to EBIT in the first half of the year were also around € 2.6 mio.