Shenzhen, Guangdong – Chinese home appliance and electronics maker Konka Group has bought three subsidiaries of financially troubled refrigerator maker Frestec.
In June, court-appointed administrators ordered Frestec to sell assets to meet creditors’ demands after it went into financial difficulties. Konka Group made the winning bid was at CNY 455m ($69m), slightly higher than the starting price of CNY 450m. Konka also bought the subsidiaries' brands and patents.
Strong in brown goods such as television sets, Konka has made a foray into white goods, with a new site inaugurated in 2012 in Chuzhou, Anhui province. This has a 3m unit/year refrigerator capacity. Frestec’s refrigerator capacity reached 10m unit/year in 2014
Based in Shenzhen, Guangdong, Konka last year recorded CNY 1.7bn sales in the segment, up 2% from 2016.
White goods accounted for 6% of Konka’s total revenue last year, and the company plans to pump an annual amount of at least CNY 100m into white goods’ branding, research and facilities until 2021.
