Tanneries for sale: find a number of online “bargains”, from South Africa (194,000 euros) to Sri Lanka (12 million dollars)

In the internet, one can really sell and buy everything, including entire tanneries. Such is the proposition in a few web platforms. On top of hundreds of advertisements about machinery for processing leather in the tanning industry, someone is also trying to sell his own business: that is why one can find facilities, pallets stacked with raw hides and drums for sale. For instance, spending 3.2 million South African rands, slightly more than 194,000 euros, you can buy the only tannery (in the picture) at Western Cape, in the province of southern South Africa. The tannery, which extends across 500 square metres, is located “in the close surroundings” of Durbanville: it has been working for 14 years, and currently hires 8 “well trained employees. Thanks to tourism, which is getting increasingly popular, and trade exports, the business has a great expanding potential”, points out the advertiser. One more tannery for sale is located in Sri Lanka, in the district of Gampaha: the financial investment to buy it is much more expensive though. In the advertisement, they remark the tannery “has got a sewage treatment plant”; moreover, this is supposedly the only one, all around Sri Lanka, running a direct connection with the drain. “All machinery working in the tannery have been made in Italy”, adds the advertiser, and their production capacity is up to 25 tons of hides a day. Furthermore, it has allegedly registered into an exemption scheme as for customs duties on imports of wet blue hides, chemicals and machinery. Its selling price is 12 million dollars; as an alternative, they might create a joint venture, as long as they deem their partner reliable. The company is closely linked to a shoe factory, run by the same advertisers, where they manufacture around 5,000 pairs of shoes a day. The selling price for this additional business is 8 million dollars. Yet, in addition to tanneries currently working, buyers may also find other enterprises, which used to process leather in the past days and are now ready to turn into something else. For example, a traditional tannery, placed in Marrakech, is for sale: price is 1.4 million euros. It extends across 1,700 square metres: facilities, partly made of metal sheet shacks, are based in the area of Riad Laarous. One can still see the holes they dug in the ground, where they used to tan hides. “A family of tanners still lives” here, inside this stonework facility, since they currently take the area as “a cheap accommodation”. The advertiser is selling the ground as a potential surface on which one could build “a hotel or some luxury real estates”. Another historic tannery, which faces right onto the Mediterranean Sea, is the one located in Tabakaria, a former Greek leather cluster, which is now a protected area: its selling price is 800,000 euros. Facilities lean on two floors, respectively 384 and 336 square metres wide. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, tanners who worked there used to take seawater, very close indeed, for the early processing stages. Most companies decided to leave the district during the half of the 20^th century: there are now several abandoned ex-tanneries, including the one for sale, in the area. As you can read in the advertisement, the building “may turn into a stately home or a boutique filled with outstanding architectural beauty”.