BenQ closes their mobile phone division in Munich

The TV was on at lunchtime, but I could not hear what was being said. However it appeared to be that BenQ is shutting down its mobile division here (which was Siemens mobile)

That is what is sounds like.

That was the agreement.

Bugger. Why did they buy it so they could close it down less than two years later, or is the whole BenQ group going down the tubes?

What's this going to do the already slack job market for mobile phone experts in Munich?

Can't say I am suprised. Glad I left there two years ago! I do hope that they will be able to find new jobs soon.

G.

Yeah. It's just the German phone section of BenQ. It was all planned, it is no surprise really. Shitty for the workers losing their jobs though.

Just reading about it at Spiegel.de (in German)

And in English: BenQ mobile phone business faces closure in Germany

I used to work for the company that owned BenQ. I don't think core BenQ activities are a problem but it bit off a lot more than it could chew with Siemens. You can bet that the guys sitting in the office in Taipei are losing just as much sleep, if not more, as the people here in Germany. They're regretting the day they tried to expand too fast now.

The reason BenQ "bought" Siemens mobile was to penetrate the Euro and Middle East markets with a better branding. Bought isnt actually the right word as Siemens actually paid BenQ to take it.

The agreement was that after 2 years, they will maintain the manufacturing facilities but will probably close the other offices.

Same story at Forbes: Taiwan's Benq says to discontinue investing in German mobile phone unit

... but its only been 1 year. The takeover came into effect 1 Oct 2005. My mail is that the BenQ employees here in Munich were not expecting this.

All you had to do was read between the lines in the SZ over the last few weeks.

A comment on this at Spiegel:

http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,439815,00.html

They should have been. It wasn't really difficult to see it coming.

The same thing happened with the Sony R&D site in Munich. After the JV with Ericsson they only kept the Munich site going for about a year before the Sony Ericsson management decided to shut it down.

The BenQ employees can probably take some comfort in the fact that the German employment laws will see that they get a nice redundancy payoff, assuming their Betreibsrat is any good. All those dead-wood Siemens middle managers who would have been given the boot years ago in a UK or US company will probably make a tidy sum out of it.

Having worked there myself I can only second Malcolm's opnion.

But it looks like Siemens is not going to give up without a fight:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,440409,00.html

TheRegister: Germans begin probe into BenQ Mobile collapse.

News source: c|net's News.com

i just had an interesting discussion with some collegues about this. they were speculating that siemens transferred their "early retirees" to BenQ as part of an early retirement package, knowing that BenQ would go bankrupt. my collegues said that would have saved siemens on retirement payments. sounds harsh, but feasible. oh man, my collegues are old!

As I went past the office the BenQ office this morning, there was a TV news crew getting ready to do a live feed somewhere...

Today the insolvency procedure (German link) was officially initiated. Martin Prager, a lawyer specializing in salvaging insolvent companies, was not able to find investors able and willing to take over the company as a whole. Prager criticized the Siemens managers harshly, laying the blame for the hopeless situation on their shoulders and claiming that BenQ had underestimated the difficulties which they faced and ultimately ruined the company.
If, however, a financially potent investor were to take over the company even at this stage parts of it possibly can be saved. The longer production is interrupted the harder it will be to regain the former market position. So I suppose the TV-crew was there to tape the press conference regarding the insolvency.