Imtech declared bankrupt in Rotterdam court; 15,000 jobs threatened

Consultancy and service firm Royal Imtech N.V. formally entered bankruptcy protection on Thursday. The fate of part of the Gouda-based company's workforce, including 22,000 global employees, of which 2,700 are in the Netherlands, is not yet known. At least 7,300 of those jobs are protected after the company's Marine and Nordic divisions were sold off. Parcom Capital and Pon Holdings acquired the Marine unit. Imtech Nordic was spun off into a separate, private business. The job figure includes 1,300 Netherlands employees. The administrators are looking to sell-off the Traffic and Infrastructure unit, as well as Imtech Belgium, Imtech Spain, and Imtech UK/Ireland. Dutch firm Kuijpers also announced their intention to bid on parts of Imtech. Debt-holders are first in line to get payments, leaving shareholders unlikely to regain any value from the business division sales. Trading in the company's stock was halted by financial authority AFM on Thursday morning. It will be pulled off the Euronext Amsterdam MidCap index listing "very soon," a Euronext spokesman told newswire AFN. Imtech Germany officially went bankrupt a week ago.