The chemical company Covestro used to belong to Bayer and produces foams and plastics. An Arab oil company could soon take over the company. Now the management is pulling out the red pen.
The chemical company Covestro is facing job cuts. The company announced in Leverkusen on Tuesday that it plans to save 400 million euros per year across the group by the end of 2028, 190 million of which will be in Germany. This is to be achieved by reducing personnel and material costs. It is not yet clear how many jobs will be lost. The cuts are to be socially acceptable through severance payments, part-time retirement and other elements. According to an agreement with the employee side, redundancies for operational reasons are excluded until the end of 2032, four years longer than before.
Covestro has 17,500 full-time positions, of which around 7,000 are in Germany. In addition to the headquarters in Leverkusen, there are large locations in Krefeld (Uerdingen), Dormagen (all in North Rhine-Westphalia) and Brunsbüttel (Schleswig-Holstein). Abroad, there are large plants near Houston (USA) and in Shanghai (China). The group produces rigid and flexible foams as well as rigid plastics for the automotive, construction, electronics and furniture industries, for example.
Chemical companies like Covestro are suffering from the consequences of the war in Ukraine and the associated high gas and energy prices. In addition, the global economy did not recover from the corona pandemic as quickly as hoped, partly because China was no longer a driver due to a serious real estate crisis, among other things. Although there have been increasing signs of recovery for the industry for several months, there has been no real optimism so far.
Covestro, whose business division used to belong to the Bayer Group, could be taken over by a company from the United Arab Emirates in the near future. On Monday, the company announced that it was negotiating a possible transaction with the oil company Abu Dhabi National Oil (Adnoc). “We have made good progress in our talks with Adnoc,” said Covestro CEO Markus Steilemann. “We have therefore decided to enter into concrete transaction negotiations with Adnoc.”
Source: Stern
