Tapio Kolunsarka, executive VP, UPM Raflatac, said the film business has seen robust growth in Europe in recent years and it wants to increase its coating capacity in Nowa Wies, Poland.
Cost savings
“The majority of the film market is in Central and Southern Europe and with this capacity we will be able to serve our customers in those market areas better in future,” he said.
The company will invest approximately €13m in a coating line at its self-adhesive labelstock factory in Nowa Wies, Poland, while an older film coating line in Tampere, Finland and the UPM Raflatac siliconising line in Tervasaari, Finland will be closed.
It will also close its sheet labelstock coating operations and reduce capacity in sheets finishing in Polinya, Spain. Which will be centralized to Nowa Wies.
Kolunsarka said the decision will lead to annual cost savings of about €4m starting from 2015 and exceeding €6m in 2016.
Job losses
A total of 122 jobs will be lost including 86 in Spain and 36 in Finland.
The final decisions will be taken after employee consultation and negotiations in the relevant countries. The majority of restructuring is estimated to be completed by the end of 2014.
“We will streamline our capacity in Tampere, Finland to meet the needs of the reduced service area,” added Kolunsarka.
“In past years, the sheets market has been affected by changes in customer buying behaviour and the market segment has been stagnating. As a consequence we have seen a sharp increase in competition in the market and we are planning to centralize sheet production to Nowa Wies, Poland to remain competitive in this segment in the future.”