ORWO Net: restructuring through transfer successfully accomplished

In March 2025, following a respective application, the responsible District Court in Dessau-Rosslau ordered provisional insolvency administration of the assets of ORWO Net GmbH in Bitterfeld-Wolfen. The Court appointed Dr Christian Heintze, a lawyer from BBL, as provisional administrator. The application for insolvency was made due to the company’s accumulated losses. An attempt made shortly before the application at out-of-court restructuring had failed.

An M&A process was immediately instigated, and this quickly resulted in success: as early as 1 July 2025, Picanova GmbH/The Customization Group (TCG), leading providers of personalised print-on-demand products, had acquired ORWO Net GmbH’s key assets as part of an asset deal. Johannes Leßmann of SME consultancy enomyc assisted in the search for investors and with continuity planning for the business.

In order to facilitate the transfer to an investor, Dr Christian Heintze, in his role as provisional insolvency administrator, put his experience in the printing industry and with customised printed products to good use in continuing to run the business, with the support of the management, to its full extent, having maintained business operations even after the proceedings opened on 1 June 2025. TCG states that it plans to develop the Bitterfeld-Wolfen site into a ‘leading European centre for photo lab products’, and that in the future it will continue to employ 146 former ORWO Net personnel.

ORWO Net is one of the leading large-scale photographic laboratories in Germany. Its range of services includes the production of pictures, photo books, calendars and customised products under the company’s own ORWO brand and for third parties. ORWO Net also acts as the service provider for drugstore chain Rossmann’s Fotowelt brand. In 2023 the company, which employs an average workforce of 244, generated sales of around €30 million.