LORIA, Italy (BRAIN)—Bankrupt Italian stem and handlebar maker ITM is negotiating with several potential buyers for its brand name and equipment, and managers expect to announce an agreement within the next two weeks.
ITM managers are seeking the best deal and hope to find a buyer who will keep production in Italy, or at least in Europe. However, it is a virtual certainty that the stem and bar factory in Loria, Italy, will close soon, said Sandra Sartori, sales manager with the highly regarded aftermarket and original equipment brand. The company went into voluntary liquidation in early June.
“We have a few candidates, a few Italian and European, mainly, but nothing has been decided as to who’s going to take it over. What we want to do is to sell the brand name together with the equipment to make parts, because that’s the portion that was still made here in Italy and in Romania,” Sartori said.
“Maybe we’ll stay around the area if somebody Italian buys it, but for sure not here,” in Loria, she added.
Depending on the eventual buyer, she said, another possibility is that ITM’s research and development sections could stay in Italy or another European company, but production move to Asia. That was the approach taken by the group that recently bought ITM competitor 3T from Gruppo.
—John Crenshaw
