Background: The story so far - an obvious lie!

The tale of the cannibalization of the Nordhausen bicycle factory is a scandal: The present owners Texan US investment company Lone Star (with offices in Frankfurt, Brussels) have restructured this factory into the ground just like the parent plant Biria in Saxonian Neukirch (in November 2005 the German Biria AG was swallowed by Lone Star, Biria sold fewer nicycles than expected). The stringpulers of the destruction of the Biria group are however Lone Star and their business rival MIFA (Mitteldeutsche Farhrradwerke AG) in Sangerhausen Saxony-Anhalt. MIFA bought out gatus 233. GmbH in December 2006 in Berlin, which was created for the sole purpose of aquiring the assets of the Biria group - the factories in Neukirch and Nordhausen belonged to Biria. The fusion of the subsidiary gatus 233. GmbH with the MIFA follows retrospectively as of the 1st of January.

What does Lone Star want?

Is this a matter of market adjustment or are they already organising the take-over of the MIFA, in order to use it as shell company? Anyway Lone Star received as thanks for this pre-arranged affair between them, the MIFA and the bankrupt Biria group a 25%-stock of shares of the quoted MIFA.. that way all oders migrated from Neukirch and Nordhausen to Sangerhausen. The Biria group must currently pay back 5.2 million Euros public subsidies, not however the former owner, Lone Star...

Who has contrived this?

Is it the MIFA board member Peter Wicht - former joint director of Robotron? Together with his partner Michael Lehmann he also owns another block of shares of the Hyrican Informationssysteme AG (ex-Lehmann & Partner), mass manufacturer of cheap computers for department store chains; in nearby Kindelbrück where he acts as supervisory board chairman.

• Marcus Brüning was appointed on the 16th April 2007 for his loyal services into the MIFA executive committee, after being unsuccessfully active "from 2006 to 2007 as Managing Director at the Biria group, Neukirch/Nordhausen " (MIFA half-yearly figures 2007). He learned his core expertise "Interimsmanagement, consultation in restructuring and sanitation" as a proxy of the Dresdner Bank AG, Munich et al.; today he is additionally partner at Günther & Partner: "Purchase and Sale of enterprises, financing and restructuring" in Munich.
  
• Two supervisory board members of the MIFA are by the way also active in the same board of the Hyrican AG: Uwe Lichtenhahn, director of Saving Bank i.R. from Mannheim and Hans-Joachim Rust, leader of risk management of the MLE-Bank GmbH - subsidiary of the Japanese Mitsubishi company.

What are Lone Star, Wicht, Lehmann and Brüning planning?

We claim publicly that these obvious connections were concealed. Rather the global operating multinational Lone Star was chosen, to sound cries of job eating, foreign corporate-raiding "locusts". But the profit-greedy consortium consists not only of Lone Star but also native capitalists such as Peter Wicht, the Hyrican from Kindelbrück, who destroyed 355 jobs of his rival, in order to increase his profit rate. Does he want to undermine his two companies together with Lone Star in preparation for attack from mass produced computers and bicycles from Korea (Samsung is the main supplier)? This stitch-up can only be countered by international solidarity, so the FAU will contact its international sister trade unions in the IAA for solidarity, in order to oppose the job corrosive walkover of the Wicht-Lehmann-Group and Lone star on the European computer and bicycle market.

Story by anarcho-syndicalist union FAU (Freie Arbeiterinnen- und Arbeiter-Union - Free Workers-Union)