Lonza shutting Montco plant; 140 to be idled

About 140 employees of Lonza Group Ltd. will lose their jobs by the end of the year when the Swiss chemical and biological-ingredients manufacturer closes its Conshohocken plant, company officials say.

A Lonza spokesman in Basel, Switzerland, said yesterday that the plant's closure was part of a worldwide restructuring of the company's operations that was expected to cut its 8,500-member workforce by 450 employees, or about 5 percent.

Last week, Lonza said the first phase would include shutting the Pennsylvania plant as well as smaller facilities in Quebec and the United Kingdom. The company said the cutbacks were intended to "adjust the organization to the more volatile market environment" and would save $60 million to $80 million during the next two years.

The company reported 2008 sales of about 2.9 billion Swiss francs, or roughly $2.7 billion at average 2008 exchange rates.

Spokesman Dominik Werner said the plant, known as Riverside and located in Upper Merion Township, employed about 80 professional or technical staffers and about 60 other workers. He said "the vast majority" were expected to lose their jobs, although some might be eligible for positions at U.S. plants unaffected by cutbacks.

Werner said the Conshohocken plant made custom chemical ingredients for pharmaceutical manufacturers.

"One of the main reasons we have to close Riverside is that we have lost some important contracts in the last year," he said. "We haven't been able to replace those contracts to maintain the site for the next several years."

Werner said ongoing operations at the plant would be shifted to facilities in Switzerland and Nansha, China. He said Lonza's strategic focus in chemical manufacturing was shifting toward larger-volume products "that have to be manufactured at low cost, which can only be done in Asia."

Lonza's other main U.S. facilities, in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Illinois, make ingredients for biological and life-science products, according to Mike Oglensky, the head of human resources for the Conshohocken plant.

Oglensky said Lonza was "in the process of trying to identify opportunities at some of their other sites" for employees facing layoffs. He said the Conshohocken plant's closing was expected to occur during the final quarter of 2010.

Oglensky said the company expected to offer severance benefits and outplacement services to laid-off employees. "That's our philosophical commitment to our people - to treat them fairly and transparently," he said.