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The Husum shrimp cutter "SU24 Birte" can set sail again, insolvency has been averted. The new owner is unusual: Opus Marine GmbH, a Zeitfracht Group company.

Husum shrimp fisherman André Eckholdt (38) had filed for insolvency at the beginning of December 2021. The financial burdens from the operation of his 1969-built shrimp cutter "Birte" and to repay the loan for the ship he had only acquired in 2018 were too high. The Husum Local Court appointed Hamburg restructuring expert Dr. Arno Doebert from the law firm Reimer as provisional insolvency administrator on 15 December 2021.

The transaction enables Captain André Eckholdt to withdraw his insolvency petition. At the same time, he and his deckhand will receive permanent employment contracts from Opus Marine GmbH and can continue to run the family business unchanged.

The turning point came with a personal posting by the provisional insolvency administrator Doebert on the career network LinkedIn. Under the headline "Investor:in wanted! Please share", he described the impending fate of the small fishing company on January 24, 2022. The response was overwhelming: within 24 hours, more than 300,000 LinkedIn users had seen the post, shared it around 1,500 times, commented on it over 350 times and liked it around 4,000 times. The press also reported on the unusual search for investors - including "WirtschaftsWoche" in its online edition.

Wolfram Simon-Schröter, CEO of the Zeitfracht Group, read this article - and decided to provide immediate help. "As a family business and North Sea fans, we felt a personal need to save this small company and help preserve jobs and a friendly industry." Simon-Schröter's only condition is: "A pound of fresh crabs every month. And my managers and I will definitely go along for the ride. Working in the fresh air has never hurt anyone."

In the meantime, the transaction sum has been deposited in an escrow account at the Reimer law firm. The regularly required technical acceptance of the "Birte" by the employers' liability insurance association was also successful on Thursday (January 27, 2022). Even the refurbishment expert Doebert had not expected such an ideal overall solution: "This is a modern-day fairytale. I'm delighted for the Eckholdt family, their deckhand - and of course for the creditors." Finding investors via social media was also new territory for Doebert. "It was a trial. But ultimately there was nothing to lose. However, the response took me completely by surprise - it was simply impossible to respond to all the offers of help and requests," says the lawyer.