At the beginning of this year, KARL MAYER announced that it would be shifting its focus back to its core areas of warp knitting, warp preparation and technical textiles. As part of this strategic realignment, the flat knitting machine business under the STOLL brand will be discontinued. The Reutlingen plant will close down on 31 October 2025. Production in China will end in December 2025. This was an extremely difficult decision for KARL MAYER.
Seersucker fabrics are icons of the clothing industry and assure their manufacturers' success. Just in time for ITMA ASIA + CITME 2025, the textile product developers at KARL MAYER have succeeded in creating brand new variants of this material. These fancy newcomers feature unique bubble effects and, with their new dimensionality, inject extra dynamism into the textile surface – and into the market.
The manufacturing of warp knitting machines has made KARL MAYER a leader in its field. It remains the company’s most important Business Unit today and has established its name as a brand in the warp knitting industry. KARL MAYER stands for the very highest quality, performance and technical progress. In a persistently difficult market environment, the company is seeking to strengthen its outstanding reputation and, above all, focus more than ever on innovation. The man responsible for this reorientation is Axel Wintermeyer, who has been President of the Warp Knitting Business Unit at KARL MAYER since January 2025 and is also part of the Management board.
On 23 September 2025, Mayer & Cie., a manufacturer of circular knitting and braiding machines in Albstadt, filed an application for the opening of insolvency proceedings in self-administration at the Hechingen District Court.
Effective 1 November 2025, the Supervisory Board of the KARL MAYER Group, a leading global provider of solutions in textile machinery manufacturing, has appointed Lutz Wolf (51) as the new sole CEO of KARL MAYER Holding SE & Co. KG. Wolf will assume overall responsibility for the internationally active group of companies, which has its headquarters in Obertshausen, Germany.
Leading flat knitting solutions company SHIMA SEIKI MFG., LTD. of Wakayama, Japan, will be participating in the ITMA Asia + CITME 2025 exhibition in Singapore in October. SHIMA SEIKI continues with its concept of “SHIMA SEIKI Reborn” for this year’s exhibition.
Karl J. Mayer on the strategy, focus and future of KARL MAYER and its exhibition at ITMA ASIA + CITME 2025.
