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AstraZeneca has completed its restructuring in Germany – culminating in the sale of its manufacturing facility in Plankstadt, the company has announced.
The site is being sold to Frankfurt-based International Chemical Investors Group for an undisclosed sum and the new owner has agreed to keep on 80% of the workforce.
AstraZeneca in turn has guaranteed a specified volume for the plant until 2009.
AstraZeneca spokesman Matthias Mezzele said that ownership of the site would be transferred at the latest by February 2008, leaving the company with one other facility in Germany, its packaging plant in Wedel, near Hamburg.
Norbert Marquardt, the senior executive for Plankstadt, said: “We are pleased that we were able to avert a site closure,” adding that it now has “the chance of a long-term future. ICIG is an ideal partner in every respect”.
ICIG is a privately-held investment company which focuses on mid-sized chemicals businesses. Since being set up in 2004, it has acquired 13 such operations which have sales of about 500 million euros and the group operates 17 manufacturing plants, ten of which are in Germany.
Managing director Achim Riemann said: “We have many years of experience with acquisitions of production sites from manufacturing networks and have proven that we implement this business model with commercial success.”
Plankstadt was an important manufacturing facility for the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker but it announced plans for a sale or closure of the plant in April as part of a plan to eliminate 3000 positions on a global basis over the next three years in an effort to improve productivity.
