Maxdata goes titsup

Slumping revenues

By Jan Libbenga • Get more from this author

25th June 2008 16:55 GMT

Maxdata has gone bust. The German computer manufacturer filed for insolvency proceedings at the Local Court in Essen today.

The management board has "decided on this step because pending illiquidity puts continued business operations at risk", the company said in a statement.

In other words, it has run out of cash.

"The high pressure of the competition and the immense fall in prices in the IT industry have affected Maxdata for some years. The company has suffered a heavy decline in turnover and results. In spite of a restructuring program launched in 2006 the turnaround could not be achieved in 2007 or in the first half of 2008."

The company, which makes servers, computers, notebooks and displays, has about 1,000 employees.

Maxdata was founded by Holger Lampatz, and initially sold monitors and graphics cards to the trade. The monitor brand Belinea was introduced in 1991.

In 1997, the company started a sales offices in the UK and in other countries, but in 2000 the company was already forced to shut down its OEM business. Turnover fell to €952.2m.

In 2005, Maxdata achieved its biggest revenues with servers, desktops and notebooks as well as Belinea TFT displays, but success was short-lived.

The insolvency proceedings will also affect subsidiaries in Germany and abroad, with the exception of the sales companies in Switzerland (Baar) and the Netherlands (Maxdata Benelux, Etten-Leur). ®