KME - comment

KME’s decision to move some production from France to Italy and lay off 117 workers reflects the constraints on volumes at the KME group as well as the losses in the plant. Production at the Ardennes plant has fallen from 9k tons to 6k tons from 2019 – 2021. Much of that will be down to lower overall production due to difficulty in funding working capital. The centralisation of production in Italy will reduce costs but also capacity. Trefimetaux is a serial loss-making business. The article points out that it lost €67.5m between 2015 – 2020. In March 2019 KME paid €2m for the 49% minority stake previously held by European Copper Tubes Ltd). Turnover in 2020 was €118m.

Fromelennes: 117 jobs in the hot seat in Tréfimétaux (francebleu.fr)