A beleaguered Recaro Automotive has been rescued thanks to an Italian parts company’s financial investment.
On Thursday, Italian parts outfit Proma Group signed an agreement to take over Stuttgart-based Recaro Automotive GmbH, securing its short-term future after the storied seat manufacturer filed for bankruptcy earlier this summer.
Proma’s financial investment into Recaro Automotive will allow the company to continue its operations in a transitional phase, with the Italian company retaining at least some of Recaro’s employees in the process. Thursday’s official statement states Proma will keep employees from the sales and technology teams on the payroll, and work to relaunch Recaro products in Europe in January 2025. “Our investment in Recaro Automotive will strengthen our ability to deliver a premium seating product while embracing the most cutting-edge innovations in the automotive sector,” Proma Group CEO Luca Pino said of this latest development.
For clarity, it’s worth noting that this investment deal specifically affects the German Recaro Automotive entity (Recaro Automotive GmbH). Recaro Automotive’s U.S. and Japan-based businesses were not impacted by the insolvency proceedings that began in July, and will continue to be unaffected as Proma digs in to the operations in Stuttgart.
While the company was originally founded by Wilhelm Reutter in 1906, Recaro has been through a few changes in ownership in recent years. It was last sold in 2020 to Detroit-based Raven Acquisitions. The current entity is technically not under Recaro Holding (which controls interests in aircraft seating as well as gaming seats). Instead, the larger Recaro Group licenses the Recaro name out to the Recaro Automotive seating business — the company that’s now under Proma Group.
At the moment, it’s unclear exactly how much money Proma Group is funneling into Recaro to reboot its European operations. The bankruptcy proceedings did reportedly affect OEMs like Ineos, which had to pause production of its Grenadier SUV and Quartermaster pickup due to a supply issue. However, Ineos never specifically named Recaro as the supplier in question. It’s since announced it will restart operations in January, which is the exact same time Proma will start up Recaro’s operations in Europe (convenient, considering the Grenadier/Quartermaster are built in France).
