The local registry court in Munich opened insolvency proceedings on Wednesday for  the struggling manufacturer of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) Qimonda. The Munich-based lawyer Dr. Michael Jaffé, who has already acted as preliminary insolvency administrator, was appointed as insolvency administrator for the company.

Dr. Jaffé and his team are continuing discussions with potential interested parties. The aim is to preserve the Qimonda sites and as many jobs as possible in Dresden, Munich and Portugal. Consultations with political bodies in Bavaria, Saxony, the Federal Republic of Germany, Portugal and the EU concerning support for a potential continuation of operations are running in parallel. The prerequisite for such support is the engagement of an “anchor” investor in a new Qimonda.

A central condition for the continuation of talks with investors was the successful formation of transfer companies for the employees in Dresden and Munich. About 600 employees in Munich and about 1850 employees in Dresden accepted the offer made last week to join the transfer company on April 1, 2009. Compared to the total number of employees who had received such an offer, this translates into an acceptance of 84% for Munich and 93% for Dresden, where a corresponding offer was made. The transfer company guarantees the employees net wages on the basis of compensation for reduced hours, with a supplement of 10% over a maximum period of 4.5 months until mid–August 2009. Depending on the employee’s marital status, this corresponds to about 70% or 77% of the net wages that had been paid prior to insolvency.

With the opening of the insolvency procedures, a highly qualified core team, consisting initially of about 340 employees in Munich and about 575 employees in Dresden continues to work and is ensuring that the business organization with all related central functions remains in place. Additionally, Qimonda’s Buried Wordline Technology is being maintained and partially further developed.

Since filing for insolvency on January 23, 2009, it was possible to continue operations at manufacturing facilities in Germany and Portugal. Mass production of memory chips at Dresden is on hold starting April 1, 2009. The equipment will be put into a stand-by mode. Experts will maintain the sophisticated machinery in order to protect it from damage during the stand-by period. If an investor solution materializes, production could be resumed.

No final decisions have been reached as yet with regard to the future structure of the company. This also applies to a decision over whether parts of the business which are able to continue operations will be transferred to a new company belonging to new investors. In this case, or if no investors can be found to finance Qimonda's continued operation, Qimonda AG, which has been legally dissolved with the opening of insolvency proceedings, would most likely be liquidated. In case of a liquidation of Qimonda AG, it is expected, based on the current state of affairs, that the shareholders of Qimonda AG will not receive any payments on their shares after the finalization of the insolvency proceedings and the distribution of any remaining insolvency assets to the creditors. No statement can be made at this time regarding any such distribution to creditors.

Tags: Qimonda, Business, DRAM