Recaro is a household name in the world of sports seats, but its future is now unclear.
Seat manufacturer Recaro has filed for bankruptcy, according to filings that became available Tuesday. As part of the company’s evident insolvency, employees were not informed that this move was on the near horizon, according to local reports picked up by British outlet Autocar.
Over the past several years, Recaro Automotive Seating provided sporty bucket seats to the likes of BMW, Ford and Volkswagen Group, among several others. Now that the German courts approved its self-administration, no one knows — or at least is publicly disclosing — what the company’s future will be, which could cause a shake up in the performance seat market, from OEMs to aftermarket enthusiasts and racing teams.
Per the reports, employees also appear to be left in the lurch, as the IG Metall trade union is also demanding answers and more transparency from Recaro’s upper management for the manufacturer’s 215 German factory workers.
Recaro’s gone through different ownership over the past decade or so, with its last acquisition happening in 2020. Raven Acquisitions bought the company, which reported about $150 million in revenue for the 2019 fiscal year, with the idea of “shorter and faster decision-making processes allowing greater flexibility to better meet the requirements of the market.” The company’s history, as a whole, stretches back to 1906 by Wilhelm Reutter, though the company launched its first “sport seat” at the 1965 Frankfurt Motor Show.
