Green light to the arrangement with creditors with business continuity for Heila Cranes, a company from Poviglio (Reggio Emilia) specialized for over 40 years in the construction of marine cranes, acquired last July by Ibla Capital, a private equity fund specializing in small and medium-sized Italian companies.
The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine – between the shutdown of some shipyards, bottlenecks in supply chains and explosion in energy costs – had in fact generated a serious financial difficulty for the company, which also represents an excellence of Italian industry, with 90% of exports and some of the most important shipyards in the world as customers. So much so that the request for admission to the arrangement with creditors procedure was launched in July 2022, the approval of which by the Court of Reggio Emilia has arrived in these days.
Heila Cranes is advised by Juri Bettinelli of Allen & Overy as legal advisor and by Renato Bogoni and Marella Chiapetti of Studio Bogoni as financial advisor. The arrangement plan with business continuity was certified by Franco Cadoppi. The results of the relaunch phase started in July are already evident: «We intervened with an internal restructuring of the processes and of the organization, focusing on the core business of the company, i.e. the products with the highest margins», explains Alessandro Lo Savio, managing director of Ibla and president of Heila Cranes. This has allowed the company to regain a positive margin as early as 2022.
“The objective is to maintain the profitability situation and gradually increase revenues, to return to the levels of the best years, around 20 million euro”, adds Lo Savio. The development plan provides for the strengthening of the commercial area, also through the inclusion of new professional figures, the consolidation of the management and a focus on large loyal customers.
From an employment point of view, there were no layoffs in the restructuring phase, and indeed the recovery plan provides for a progressive increase in employees (currently 50), up to 20% within three years.