GERMANY – The Supervisory Board of Surteco Group SE passed a resolution relating to comprehensive measures designed to optimize the structure of the company.  They include rationalization of management and sales structures, as well as investments in growth segments.

In order to streamline the Group structures, the executive management of Surteco GmbH will be taken over by the Management Board of Surteco Group SE with effect from next year. In this context, the managing directors Mr. Dieter Baumanns and Mr. Peter Schulte leave the company. As part of a functional organization, the Management Board will in future assume responsibility for operational activities. Additionally, the organization will be further streamlined by closing the sales companies in Spain and Turkey. The reduction of approximately 175 jobs, particularly in the Decoratives Segment, is intended to strengthen competitiveness at the German locations.

“There is no alternative to the planned restructuring measures. Equally important, is investing in growth areas such as supermatt surfaces, release papers, digital printing and the area of profiles,” commented Wolfgang Moyses, the Chairman of the Management Board of Surteco Group SE.

Owing to the demand-related under-utilization of capacity and optimization of the production network over the long term, one-off write-downs on assets and inventories are also being carried out in the business year 2019.Expenses about 15 to 20 million euros will be incurred for these measures, which will constitute an obviously negative burden on the result for 2019.  Over the medium term, the measures referred to above should lead to an EBIT between 55 and 60 million euros.

In the business year 2020, the company will be investing in forward-looking projects. These include investment in production facilities, and in production and warehousing areas in the strongly growing Profiles Segment. In the Decoratives Segment, new production lines will be installed in the plastic edgings business and decorative printing will be expanded by a full-range digital printing facility that is scheduled to start up production operations already in the business year 2020.