The encyclopedia · Finance & Accounting · Financial decision · 1896–2025
Menrad made eyewear for 129 years — a failed investor search ended it in one filing
The German frame maker behind Jaguar and JOOP! glasses ran out of orders, then ran out of time to find a buyer, and filed for insolvency in March 2025.
Menrad · 2025-03-31
What happened
Menrad, founded in 1896 in Schwäbisch Gmünd, was one of Europe's larger independent eyewear manufacturers, selling frames under its own name and under licensed brands including Jaguar, JOOP! and Morgan into more than 100 countries. It was still a family business in its fourth generation, run by brothers Eberhard and Hermann Müller-Menrad, when declining orders and sales caught up with it.
The company filed for insolvency at the local court in Aalen at the end of March 2025, citing a liquidity shortfall it could no longer bridge. Administrator Florian Zistler of PLUTA searched for an investor to take over the business as a going concern rather than liquidate it outright — the search failed. Wages kept flowing only through the German employment agency's insolvency-benefit scheme, which covers pay for a maximum of three months.
When that window closed at the end of May 2025, Menrad had no way to fund payroll itself. The Schwäbisch Gmünd site closed and its entire workforce there — around 100 people — was made redundant. What survived was narrower: Zistler sold the Jaguar, JOOP! and Morgan brands, along with inventory and trademark rights, to Design Eyewear Group on June 6, 2025. Ten of Menrad's own sales representatives were kept on by the buyer; the manufacturer itself was not.
Why it happened
- The company let its order book decline for long enough that insolvency, not restructuring, became the entry point to any rescue.
- The rescue plan depended on finding an outside investor inside a fixed, short window — the statutory insolvency-benefit period — and no buyer for the whole business materialized in time.
- Because Jaguar, JOOP! and Morgan were licensed names, they could be detached and sold separately from the factory that built them, leaving the manufacturer with nothing to sell but its site.
The lesson
An insolvency filing buys a fixed number of months, not an open-ended rescue window — no buyer before the wage subsidy runs out means the factory closes.
Aftermath
Design Eyewear Group now owns and produces the Jaguar, JOOP! and Morgan eyewear lines; the Menrad name and its Schwäbisch Gmünd factory did not survive as a manufacturer. PLUTA also sold Menrad's remaining international holdings and its Schwäbisch Gmünd property, which went to a local education association, and paid out roughly €1 million in social-plan funds to former employees.
Sources
- PLUTA restructuring expert Florian Zistler sells Menrad brands to Design Eyewear Group
- Menrad schließt Standort Schwäbisch Gmünd: 100 Kündigungen — Gmünder Tagespost
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