Sampo (聲寶) electronics company is to invest in the financially troubled Grundig AG in a deal which will rescue the Nuremberg-based firm from insolvency, it was reported yesterday.
The Nuernberger Nachrichten and Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspapers said Sampo was keen to enter the German market for electronics goods.
But another report, by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeiting, said the Turkish television manufacturer Beko was a potential partner for Grundig.
Grundig spokesman Holm Kilbert described the reports yesterday as "speculation."
He said: "We are at the beginning of trusting cooperation and have to demonstrate that we are an absolutely confidential partner."
Grundig on Thursday was given a credit extension from its banks after receiving a letter of intent from the investor. It said merely that the new "strategic partner" would match the company's aims.
Sampo describes itself as Taiwan's largest electronics company, producing household appliances, consumer electronics and components.
Unlike most Japanese electronics firm it has no sales network in Europe.
Grundig laid off 1,300 workers last year at its branches in Nuremberg and Bayreuth and has been searching for an investor since early 2001 amid huge losses.
Meanwhile, the Chinese electronics firm TCL Holdings Co wants to take over the insolvent German firm Schneider Electronics AG and resume production at the firm's base in Tuerkheim, insolvency court administrator Michael Jaffe said in Munich.
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