Pawan Ruia in Calcutta on Monday. Picture by Kishor Roy Chowdhury

Calcutta, Dec. 14: Dunlop’s Pawan Ruia has acquired German auto component firm Henniges, which has Audi, BMW, Volkswagen and Daimler as its clients.

The acquisition of Henniges Automotive Grefrath is the Calcutta-based Ruia group’s second buy in Europe.

A year ago, the group had bought Schlegel Automotive Europe of the UK.

Both Schlegel and Henniges make sealing systems — rubber products that go into windows, doors and applications to reduce noise — and are expected to bring close to Rs 620 crore as turnover to the group. “We now have a fairly good presence in Europe and will supply to both Japanese and German auto makers through Schlegel and Henniges, respectively,” said Pawan Kumar Ruia, chairman of the Ruia group.

The deal is one of the most complex ones in recent times. Henniges had filed for bankruptcy, and the German federal government appointed Wolf Von Der Fecht as an administrator to oversee the liquidation of its assets.

Ruia had set up a special purpose vehicle called SPV Draftex, which bought Henniges’ assets without any liabilities.

Draftex has three major shareholders — the Ruia group holds 60 per cent in it through a Mauritius-based entity Wealth Sea; German admistrator Wolf Von Der Fecht owns 25 per cent; Juregen Hein, a professional with over three decades of experience in the auto component sector, has 15 per cent.

Ruia has a call option to buy Der Fecht’s shares after three years and Hein’s shares after five years at a mutually agreeable price.

Dunlop workers

Twenty suspended Dunlop employees have tendered an unconditional apology to the management and returned to work.

However, they will sit outside the factory for now. The other five employees chargesheeted for criminal offence have not being inducted into the rolls of the company.