ESIM Chemicals files for insolvency

Austrian crop protection and pharmaceutical chemicals manufacturer ESIM Chemicals has filed for insolvency at the Regional Court of Linz, potentially impacting 289 employees and nearly 190 creditors. Different reports put its liabilities at just under €110 million, €118 million or over €147 million in the event of liquidation. In its filing, the firm pointed to multiple economic and structural challenges, including:

• Rising costs in energy prices and wages
• Increasing competition from Asia, where overcapacity has led to reduced prices
• Loss of major customer contracts in Q2 and Q3 2025
• High fixed costs and a high debt load to current revenue levels
• A lack of new business projects and long-term planning security beyond 2028

Managing director Frank Wegener said the management had “worked intensively in recent weeks to find solutions to stabilize operations and enable a self-directed restructuring”. These efforts did not succeed and the company has appointed advisers to evaluate its next steps.

However, the firm currently intends to continue operations under a restructuring plan. This includes maintaining full production in two of the three existing plants at the former DSM site in Linz, where ESIM was originally established in 2015. “Our goal is to secure the Linz location and protect employment through a sustainable investor solution,” ESIM said.

The company name came from the two businesses it originally united: Exclusive Synthesis (ES), which offered custom manufacturing services, mainly for agrochemical active ingredients, and Industrial Materials (IM), which made intermediates for applications including crop protection, food and animal feed, personal care and polymers.

US-based investment firm Sun European Partners acquired the company from French investment firm Ardian in 2018 and sold the IM business to Vertellus, now Aurorium. However, the ESIM name was retained and rebranded as ‘Excellent Solutions In Motion’.