By Frank Esposito, Plastics News Staff
Middlebury, Connecticut -- Chemtura Corp. will eliminate 500 jobs worldwide as part of a corporate restructuring.
Chemtura - a maker of urethane prepolymers, fire retardants and other plastics additives based in Middlebury - will reduce its fixed costs by $50 million by making the cuts, which represent about 20 percent of its professional and administrative workforce.
The firm will take an unspecified fourth-quarter charge for the eliminations, and will pay cash costs of between $15 million and $20 million during the next three quarters as well.
"Like many companies, Chemtura has seen order volumes decline as its customers experience, or anticipate, reductions in demand from the industries they serve," officials said in a 11 Dec news release.
Chemtura lost $283 million in the first nine months of 2008, even as sales were flat at $2900 million against the year-ago period. The firm generates about 45 percent of its sales from plastics additives.
Chemtura's per-share stock price was above $8 in mid-June, but has been trading below $2 since mid-October."
