A CALIFORNIAN building products group is poised to acquire the operations of Co Kerry firm Liebig International, a specialist manufacturer of heavy-duty fixing and anchoring systems for the construction industry.
Simpson Manufacturing Company, based in Pleasanton, is to acquire Liebig's factory at Killorglin as part of a deal in which it will buy out the company's German parent, Liebig International Verwaltungesellschaft. Simpson Manufacturing did not answer queries about the deal yesterday and the head of Liebig's office in Killorglin did not return calls.
The deal is expected to be announced shortly. The Co Kerry operation provides significant financial support to a sister company in Germany, Heinrich Liebig Stahlduebelwerke, which runs a sales, administration and warehouse operation.
"The provision of this support gives rise to concern over the company's ability to continue as a going concern beyond July 2008," said the auditors report with Liebig International's latest abridged accounts, for 2005.
While the auditor's opinion was not qualified in that respect, the report said the provision for a bad debt at the end of 2006 was slightly in excess of €2 million.
Simpson Manufacturing plans to provide fresh impetus to the Liebig business after the deal and make use of its metric-based systems to complement a product-range that mainly makes use of imperial measurements in the US.
Liebig International, which was established at the end of 1969 and delivered its first products in 1970, ranked among the first companies to receive grant assistance from the then Industrial Development Authority, now IDA Ireland.
The company was established by German businessman Heinrich Leibig, and has been managed since his death in 2001 by his daughter Dr Ingrid Liebig-Hundius. The 2005 abridged accounts for Liebig International, which were signed off last June, indicate that the value of its profit-and-loss account declined to €4.7 million that year from €5.84 million in 2004.
The auditors report said Liebig International was continuing to provide product to its sales arm, Heinrich Liebig Stahlduebelwerke, "for which it cannot pay" and had also advanced unsecured cash loans to that company to maintain its solvency. A euro-denominated investment portfolio had a value of €2.09 million at the end of 2005 and a separate dollar-denominated portfolio was valued at $2.28 million.
