Belgian car glass manufacturer Soliver acquired by international group

An international group is acquiring Belgian auto glass group Soliver, also known as AGP. It is not known which international player is involved or how high the bid is. The new owner wants to continue operations in Belgium under a new name and would take over most of the approximately 1,000 employees.

Soliver makes auto glass for trucks and passenger cars and belongs to the German Peruvian auto glass group AGP, which also supplies the windshields of Tesla’s Model X and produces bulletproof glass for military vehicles, police cars, and naval vessels.

Three plants in Belgium

In Belgium, the group has three plants in Roeselare, Zwijnaarde, and Evergem. The largest of the three, the Roeselare plant, specializes in side windows for cars and windshields for trucks (Volvo and Renault trucks).

Zwijnaarde specializes mainly in panoramic glass roofs for cars. Finally, Evergem supplies semi-finished products to Zwijnaarde. Car customers include Porsche, Audi, Volkswagen, Skoda, BMW, and Ferrari.

Transfer under judicial authority

Soliver sought protection from its creditors last year and had its staff slashed from 1,200 to about 1,000 people. Parent company AGP, which stands for Autoglass Peruana, had run into trouble during the Covid-19 crisis and closed a new plant in Mexico, China, and the US.

The group, with its global headquarters in Ghent, still operates mainly in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. In Europe, mainly in Belgium, there are also Tech Innovations Centers in Germany and Italy.

The corporate court of Ghent, Kortrijk division, launched the procedure of transfer under judicial authority in November with a view to sale. In the end, more than ten candidate buyers were identified, so the search was completed with an offer from an international investor.

According to the liquidation experts, no further details can be given until the transfer is approved by the court. They have been given until June 30th to do so, but the deadline may be extended to November 19th. If the procedure of transfer under judicial authority fails or the court rejects the transfer, bankruptcy will follow.

Ambitious plans

According to business newspaper De Tijd, in its last public financial statements (2022), AGP Group reported an accumulated loss of 58 million euros for the Belgian branch.

Soliver was originally a Roeselare family business specializing in wholesale glass for construction, but it later switched to auto glass. In 2018, AGP bought it for 30 million euros.

Later, it also devised the biggest plans for the new plant in Evergem—an investment of 80 million euros to produce 12 car windows a year and create at least 380 jobs.

AGP, owned by the Mannheim family, with Arturo Mannheim serving as the Chairman and CEO and with the American bank Goldman Sachs as a minority shareholder, chose Belgium at the time because of its solid reputation in the glass industry.

Belgium is also home to Belron, the South African group known for CarGlass, among other products. This group is largely owned by the Brussels holding company D’Ieteren.

Legally, Soliver was owned by the holding company Transtech Glass Investments Ltd., which is based in the tax-friendly Channel Island of Jersey. However, in December, the Royal Court of Jersey liquidated the holding company.