Leoni AG has reached an agreement with lenders, bondholders and a strategic investor on a financial-restructuring plan that will result in the business having a firmer financial base through a series of steps being taken.

Per multiple media accounts, Leoni said that it will receive a liquidity injection of €150 million and be relieved of €708 million in debts as part of the financial restructuring. The company will no longer be publicly traded. A company to be established by Austrian investor Stefan Pierer will become Leoni’s sole shareholder The official release said that the deal does not affect Leoni’s subsidiaries, suppliers, customers and employees. The financial restructuring concept will, as a result, substantially reduce Leoni’s debt, provide it with fresh liquidity and secure its financing for the coming years..

Pierer, a billionaire, is CEO of Pierer Mobility, a leading motorcycle manufacturer based in Austria. He founded the Cross holding group (now Pierer Industrie) in 1987, and is still its majority shareholder as well as a member of the supervisory board of SHW AG, an auto parts company.
Rinnerberger has many years of management experience in the automotive industry, combined with extensive re-structuring expertise. For example, he helped to shape the growth of the Magna Group over a period of years—consistently in board functions (CFO, CRO, CEO)—and successfully restructured the automotive suppliers Polytec AG and Peguform (now SMP). Rinnerberger has been a member of the Executive Board of Pierer Industrie AG since 2010. The native Austrian has been a member of the Supervisory Board of Leoni AG since May 2021 and was elected its chairman in May 2022.

Leoni’s Supervisory Board Chairman Klaus Rinnerberger will become its new chief executive following merger control clearance, the company said. He succeeds Aldo Kamper, whose contract ended on March 31. “I am looking forward to doing my part in further driving the advanced restructuring - with the collective goal of a sustainably stabilized Leoni firmly in sight,” he said.

The company said that while it has now secured the necessary support for the restructuring, implementation remains subject to clearance of merger controls and other customary approvals.

WireCo©, a leading manufacturer of mission-critical wire rope, synthetic rope and netting, and electromechanical cable, has launched brand-new production of Made in the USA high-performance crane ropes.

A press release said that, for the first time, “customers can now purchase Casar and Oliveira brand ropes proudly made in America.” The launch culminates WireCo’s investment of some $30 million to deliver the same quality ropes that customers have acquired from facilities in Germany and Portugal that are now also produced in Sedalia, Missouri. The new ropes follow the exact same manufacturing and testing protocols, but local production means improved availability and quicker delivery for U.S. customers.

“Our Casar and Oliveira ropes have long enjoyed great recognition and loyalty to our U.S. customers, but production in Europe posed logistical challenges,” said WireCo CEO Keith White. “We strongly believe our ropes and our brands deserve to be made in America, and our investments back that up. We’ve never invested this much capital in one single project. That’s the power of Casar and Oliveira ropes.”

The $30 million investment completely transformed WireCo’s Sedalia facility into a high-performance crane rope center, but the company has also invested in other facilities across the United States to satisfy the growing demand for customers for domestically produced ropes. The company is looking to add more than 40 jobs to help support the initiative.

In March, WireCo showcased the new ropes and the scope of its Made-in-the-USA project at its booth at CONEXPO, which is America’s largest construction trade show, in Las Vegas.

ABB announced that it plans to invest $40 million to build a new manufacturing facility on the company’s existing campus in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Per a report in the Albuquerque Journal, the new site is being built on a 40-acre site near the existing ABB plant that has some 450 employees. The new plant will add 55 more jobs when it is up and running in 2024.

Ralph Donati, executive vice president and general manager for ABB’s Installation Products Division in the U.S. and Latin America, said that the project was ambitious. “We’re not just expanding, but upgrading our manufacturing capacity in Albuquerque,” Donati told the Albuquerque Journal. “The new plant will be a greenfield facility with the latest technology in processing, machine manufacturing and robotics to make it a factory for the future.”

The new plant will double ABB’s local production capacity of cable products used by electric utilities, which is the primary ABB product made in Albuquerque, Donati said.

Nexans has been chosen by Swissgrid to supply and bury 30 km of Very-High-Voltage (VHV) underground cables to replace overhead power lines along the southern side of the Geneva-Cointrin airport in Switzerland.

A press release said that Swissgrid, the national company in charge of Switzerland’s electricity transmission grid, chose Nexans for the project that will see the 220 kV underground cables replace the existing overhead power lines between the electrical stations of Foretaille and Renfil. The €25 million turnkey contract also calls for it to install two 144-strand fiber optic links and embed a temperature monitoring feature in the cable system.

The Swissgrid project is part of the “Axe Stratégique Réseau” development programs in the canton of Geneva and the Federal Roads Office’s “Redevelopment of the Grand-Saconnex motorway junction.” The overhead power line burial project was described as being exceptional due to its complex nature, both technically and organizationally. Nexans will be in charge of certain engineering services, including taking down and replacing the existing gas-insulated extra high voltage link (GIL).

“We welcome the opportunity to continue our work with Swissgrid on this ambitious and prestigious project, relying on the many and varied skills of the Nexans teams, from engineering to civil works, but also including the production and installation of very high voltage networks,” said Nexans Switzerland CEO Marco Spinelli.

The release said that Nexans has been active in such complex very-high-voltage cable projects in Switzerland before, including the connection of the Nant de Drance (2018), the Linth-Limmern (2016) pumped storage power plants to the national grid, and the underground cable connection of La Bâtiaz – Le Verney (2022).

CommScope announced that it is expanding its fiber-optic cable production to help feed an accelerated rollout of broadband Internet in the U.S.

A press release said that the capacity expansion at two production facilities in North Carolina—projected to cost $47 million—will increase employment by at least 250 jobs over five years. The capital expenditures include new lines of production for its HeliARC cable, a smaller and lighter-weight cable optimized for rural deployment and allowing for faster installation at lower cost.

“This increase in fiber-optic cable production is a great step forward for our ‘Broadband for Everyone’ program, furthering our commitment to serve the fiber optic cable market,” said CEO/President Chuck Treadway. “We will produce more cost-effective and easier-to-deploy fiber-optic cable, add new jobs and simultaneously strengthen the supply chain in America.”