Restructuring at Huntsman - sportstextiles: Lea SportsTextiles

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Restructuring at Huntsman

23/01/2009
Huntsman Corporation is to implement a company-wide initiative to reduce costs across its divisions and functions. Including steps undertaken during the fourth quarter of 2008, the company will reduce its full-time employment levels by approximately 1,175 positions by the end of 2009, accounting for more than 9% of its 12,770 employees. An additional full-time contractor 490 positions will also be affected. The company hopes these reductions will result in operating cost savings of approximately $150 million.

Huntsman has also announced that its pigments division plans to close its titanium dioxide plant in Grimsby, UK. The Grimsby plant, the division’s oldest and least efficient manufacturing facility, has an annual production capacity of 40,000 tonnes of titanium dioxide. Pigment production at the plant is likely to cease during the first quarter of 2009. Approximately 200 full time employees and contractors work at the site. Annual operating cost savings resulting from the plant’s closure would be approximately $28 million.

Peter Huntsman, president and CEO, said: “This restructuring will allow us to improve our business where we most acutely feel the effects of the present global economic slowdown, mainly in our pigments and textile divisions. While we are scrutinising each of our business divisions, we remain optimistic in our current positions in polyurethanes, advanced materials and performance products.”

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