Bekaert announces restructuring plans Belgium
28 Mars 2019 - 8:10AM
Bekaert is implementing actions to
rebuild the financial performance of the business. We want to raise
our competitiveness and upgrade our capability and speed in
responding to customer needs and fast moving market developments.
Increased competitive pressure and a too high cost structure are
affecting our margins. We are therefore implementing actions that
will improve our competitive position in the market place worldwide
by significantly reducing our cost structure, which will help
improve the financial performance of the Group
sustainably.
These actions include, among others,
the intention to restructure certain activities in Belgium. The
management of Bekaert has today informed its Belgian and European
works councils concerning the proposed measures and their possible
impact on the activities and the employment in Belgium. The
intended restructuring would affect 281 jobs in Belgium. The
management regrets the personal consequences of this plan and,
together with the social partners, will evaluate the options to
mitigate the social impact.
Intended lines of action:
1. We want to organize ourselves in a
more agile and cost-efficient way. We therefore have the intention
to move certain activities closer to our operations, in lower cost
locations.
We intend to move:
- the production-related standard test lab
activities to production plants that have a global service
role;
- the spare parts activities to Slovakia,
close to our main production plants in Central Europe;
- certain pilot line developments and the
upscaling of pilot developments to industrialization. These
activities would be located in the relevant 'key learning plants'
in order to speed up the development and bring-to-market process of
product and process innovations.
2. The EMEA market of steel fibers for
concrete reinforcement has become much tougher: our competitors
have moved their manufacturing footprint to Central Europe or are
sourcing fibers from low cost countries. Bekaert's
Dramix® plant in Moen, Belgium, does not have the ability to
remain competitive with the current pricing trends in EMEA. The
actions to secure our position in the European concrete
reinforcement market include the intention to close the
Dramix® plant in Moen, Belgium and the further upscaling of
the production capacity of the Dramix® plant in Petrovice,
Czech Republic.
3. We have the intention to reduce
certain activities and align them better with the business needs
and the new organizational structure of the Group. This would
include a downsizing of administrative and other support roles by
better leveraging the potential of standardization, centralization,
outsourcing and relocation.
The engineering, technology and
functional departments in Belgium will be focusing much more on
their respective, global expertise roles and act as strategic
business partners. They will be helping the business with the
capability to deliver on the short and long term goals.
Press release in PDF
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announcement is distributed by West Corporation on behalf of West
Corporation clients.
The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely
responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the
information contained therein.
Source: Bekaert via Globenewswire
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