Clariant announced that it will be relocating the headquarters of its Textile Chemicals business unit to Singapore. The company said the move, which is due to be completed by mid 2011, will place the BU's management team closer to its global customers and "at the heart of the world's main textile markets." The decision to move the unit to Asia was announced in February and was met with protests from Unia trade-union workers.

The new Singapore headquarters will accommodate the entire senior Textile Chemicals BU management team together with the global textile application technology team. Meanwhile, the application development laboratory for technical textiles and finishing will be relocated to Muttenz, near Basel, Switzerland together with the BU's dedicated European sales and marketing operation, which comprises approximately 60 people.

"Singapore is the optimum location from which to serve the key global textile markets across India, China and South East Asia," said Thomas Winkler, Head of Clariant's Textile Chemicals BU. "At the same time, Europe remains an important market for Clariant and our European textile customers will continue to be served by our dedicated, well-established infrastructure located in the region."

Final Parts of GANO Announced

The company also announced the final steps of its Global Asset Network Optimization (GANO) project, which will impact eight sites globally. These last measures are part of the company's overall 2009/2010 restructuring program and will lead to a reduction of up to 100 positions worldwide. Implementation will be finalized by 2013.

In addition to moving the Textile Chemicals BU, the company's R&D staff based in Reinach, Switzerland, will transfer to Frankfurt. This is the company's global hub for its group R&D activities.

Recognizing the need to be close to key customers, the Paper Specialties BU headquarters team will remain in Switzerland, moving from Reinach to Muttenz. Earlier this year, the Reinach-based Leather Services BU staff also completed the move to Muttenz. As a consequence, Clariant will consolidate its activities in Switzerland at two locations - Muttenz and Pratteln (corporate center), and exit Reinach by 2013.

In France, the relocation of the Clariant French headquarters from Nanterre to Lamotte has been proposed and is being discussed with workers' representatives.

Clariant will also close production sites at McHenry, Ill. (US), Delta, British Columbia (Canada) and Sefakoy (Turkey) in order to consolidate country production arrangements, thereby reducing costs and management complexity. In Guatemala City (Guatemala) Clariant will amalgamate three sites into a single production, warehousing and office facility. At Roha (India) and Shizuoka (Japan) individual production lines will be closed.

The implementation of these measures will lead to a reduction of up to 100 positions worldwide, of which approximately 70 are in Europe, including 27 in Switzerland. A further 60 Switzerland-based employees will be offered transfers to Germany and Singapore.

The GANO project was established in 2009 to address the structural weaknesses of Clariant's asset base and the long-term overcapacity issues of its production network. Including all transferring and receiving locations, approximately 30 sites are included in the GANO project.