Plastics sheet manufacturer and thermoformer Spartech LLC is closing one factory and eliminating nearly half the positions at another.
Spartech told the Wisconsin Department of Workforce that it is shutting down its Ripon, Wis., facility. The company's Oct. 4 notice under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act states that it plans to begin eliminating positions on Dec. 4. From that day until March 30, about 70 employees will be let go in stages, about 45 before the end of this year.
Also on Oct. 4, Spartech notified Ohio's Office of Workforce Development that it will begin layoffs at its Greenville, Ohio, plant on Dec. 6. In its WARN notice the company said 51 positions will be eliminated on Dec. 6 with another six to follow on Jan. 25.
In both WARN notices Spartech said the actions are "due to a change in business circumstances." Officials at Spartech and its owner, Arsenal Capital Partners, declined to comment on the closure and job cuts.
Employees at each site are not unionized and affected employees do not have bumping rights.
The Ripon operation was the former Creative Forming Inc. business until Spartech acquired it in 2007. Ripon has sheet extrusion and thermoforming capabilities and focuses on packaging. Private equity firm Mason Wells of Milwaukee was Creative's former owner after buying it in 2001.
Spartech, formerly PolyOne's Designer Structures & Solutions unit, was acquired by private equity firm Arsenal Capital earlier this year. PolyOne announced the sale on June 29, a half year after DSS recorded a $4 million loss in 2016. DSS was the smallest of PolyOne's operating units, accounting for 11.4 percent of PolyOne's sales. DSS's sales of about $402 million last year were 11.5 percent lower than in the previous year.
PolyOne bought Spartech in 2013 and has since integrated Spartech's plastics materials businesses with its own. Soon after it bought Spartech, PolyOne closed six U.S. sheet plants. Two years later it shut its Granby, Quebec, sheet plant. Those closures led to about 250 job losses.