As part of the strategy to concentrate and expand its service-based core activities, development, hire, marketing and assembly of formwork and scaffolding as well as scaffold-related industrial services over the next twelve months Thyssen Hünnebeck GmbH, Ratingen, will be disposing of marginal activities and scaling back its production capacities.

The company is planning to dispose of Emunds & Staudinger GmbH, Hückelhoven, a civil engineering specialist, and HEK International Group B.V., Netherlands, a manufacturer of access equipment. At the same time, in-house production activities at the Ratingen-Lintorf plant will be gradually wound down as of October this year and transferred to the company-owned manufacturing facility in Hungary or outsourced, particularly from Eastern European suppliers. These measures are made necessary by the continuing weakness of the construction sector and low workloads at the Lintorf facility coupled with high costs in Germany. The transfer of production is expected to bring about considerable cost reductions and thus enhance the company´s selling power for formwork and scaffolding. Thyssen Hünnebeck´s administrative, engineering and sales functions will continue to be located at the Ratingen site.

195 jobs will be affected by the closure of the scaffold and formwork production operations in Lintorf. Thyssen Hünnebeck will offer these employees socially-compatible solutions. The focus will be on finding alternative employment within the ThyssenKrupp Materials & Services segment and at other companies in the ThyssenKrupp Group, while reskilling measures and retirement provisions will also come into the formula. An appropriate personnel plan is being developed in cooperation with the works council.

The disposal of marginal activities and the reduction of production capacities are part of the strategy pursued in recent months aimed at strengthening the company´s service business and its international presence. Through the acquisition of major international scaffolding service providers such as Sweden´s Libergs Byggnadsställningar AB, the British company Palmers Ltd., Safway Steel Products Inc. in the US and the German Peiniger group, Thyssen Hünnebeck has doubled its sales and is now the world´s leading provider of industrial and construction-related services.

The group of companies has 9,000 employees and generates sales of just under one billion euros.