Budelpack executives say that 126 employees are being kept on at the company’s manufacturing site in Maestag, south Wales, but if no buyer is found by December 19, it will close and the remaining staff will be dismissed.
Netherlands-based Budelpack is blaming a 25 per cent drop in sales for the closure, stating that the business was no longer viable and that the resulting job losses were unavoidable
Workers at the site told local and national newspapers that their termination notice was abrupt, having been informed of their redundancies at the end of their shifts last week.
Business is back on the brink
Workers will be paid for the work they completed but will receive no redundancy pay outs as they were re-employed by Budelpack Cosi on specific contract terms when Budelpack took over the company in November last year
Budelpack acquired a 70 per cent share in the ailing contract manufacturer, which bought it back from the brink of financial disaster and imminent closure.
However, difficult economic conditions in the UK and all over the rest of Europe have only added to the woes of the business, which meant that Budelpack’s initial investment seems to have simply delayed the inevitable.
This led Budelpack COSi to announce its first round of job cuts at the end of October when it said it was axing 231 jobs at the facility – 81 of which were permanent staff, the remainder being agency staff.
A history of struggle
Netherlands-based Budelpack is a contract manufacturer and packer for the personal care and home care industries generating an annual turnover of €330m, while Budelpack COSi recorded sales of €105m in 2006.
COSi originally bought up the Maestag facility from Revlon in 2001 with the intention of doubling its sales turnover within the space of three years, an objective it did not manage to achieve, despite considerable investment.
Budelpack is not the only cosmetics company to be struggling in Wales. L’Oreal also announced in October that 200 jobs would go at its Talbot Green factory in Wales.