Specialty plastics and chemicals maker Lanxess AG (Booth E9233) is cutting 250 jobs worldwide, including 80 in North America.
Most of the North American cuts will be at the firm's styrenic resins location in Addyston, Ohio, spokeswoman Angela Wheland said. The Addyston site, near Cincinnati, currently employs about 400. Lanxess - based in Leverkusen Germany, with North American headquarters in Pittsburgh - also is closing a styrenics resins plant in Camaçari, Brazil.
Both in Addyston and worldwide, the cuts will come from a mixture of administrative and manufacturing positions, Wheland said. The moves should be in place by the end of the year and are being made to improve operations, she added.
The restructuring is the third for Lanxess since it separated from chemicals giant Bayer AG in mid-2004. The two previous rounds eliminated about 1,000 jobs, with less than 50 coming from North America.
Lanxess' global sales grew almost 6 percent in 2005 to 7.2 billion euros ($8.8 billion), but it still posted a loss of 63 million euros ($77.5 million), mainly because of restructuring costs. Engineering plastics - including styrenics - accounted for about 24 percent of total 2005 sales. About $1 billion of the firm's overall sales came from North America, where Lanxess employs about 2,000.
The company also is moving sales and marketing functions for styrenic resins from Pittsburgh to Addyston. About five jobs will move as well.
Lanxess ranks as one of North America's largest makers of ABS. Addyston is the firm's sole North American production site for ABS, as well as styrene acrylonitrile.