The French media report that Seaquist Closures (Mukwonago, Wisconsin / US) is planning to shut down the facility operated by Seaquist General Plastics (Mondeville / France) in Mondeville near Caen / France. The production machinery is to be transferred to Seaquist Closures France in Poincy near Paris. Most of the 43 employees in Mondeville are likely to lose their jobs. It seems that only a few have been offered alternative employment at the Poincy location, which currently has a workforce of 192.

The French company and Seaquist Closures Löffler (Freyung / Germany; www.seaquistclosures.eu) – formerly Seaquist-Löffler Kunststoffwerk – both belong to Aptar (Crystal Lake, Illinois / US; www.aptargroup.com). Aptar announced plans to consolidate two French manufacturing facilities when it published its first quarter results on 15 April 2009 but did not give any details at the time. In addition to closing the French facility, Aptar plans to consolidate several sales offices in Europe and North America. The cost of restructuring is put at USD 6m and is expected to bring annual savings of USD 3m when it is completed.

The background is a sharp drop in sales and earnings in the first quarter of 2009. Year-on-year, sales receded 19% to USD 431.8m while EBIT plunged 28% to USD 39.3m. The pharma and closures segments held up comparatively well, with sales dropping 10% and 13% respectively. The downturn was more pronounced in the beauty and home segment, where sales dropped 25%. EBIT was fairly stable: the closures segment actually reported a slight rise in EBIT to USD 11.6 bn versus USD 10.8m in the first quarter of 2008. In the pharma segment EBIT slipped to USD 28.4m, down from USD 29.6m in the first three months of 2008. By contrast, EBIT declined by nearly two thirds to USD 10.3m in the beauty & home segment, which is the group’s main sales generator.

e-Service:
Aptargroup’s full press release on the first quarter of 2009 as a PDF document (175 KB)