The company’s 70 employees will be fired
Steel products maker Urdan Industries Ltd. (TASE: URDN) today notified the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) that it will close down its wholly owned subsidiary Vulcan Foundries Ltd. in early 2007. The company said that preliminary loss estimates, due to be included in its financial report for the fourth quarter of 2006, were NIS 8 million, partly for severance compensation for employees.
Vulcan Foundries was founded in 1934. The company occupies a 52-dunam (14-acre) site in the Haifa Bay area, and until recently was one of Israel’s leading cast steel makers for the domestic market. The company also imported and exports goods, but its core business was its foundry. The company has been financially troubled for the past three years because of intense competition, mainly from Romanian and Chinese imports, which are cheaper than the company’s products.
Vulcan Foundries lost NIS 8-9 million in 2006, and Urdan, most of whose other holdings are profitable, views the company has a burden. Vulcan’s labor force has already been cut from 137 to 70. Urdan said Vulcan’s employees would be fired and paid their legally mandated compensation. Some employees may be rehired by Urdan’s other factories in Netanya.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on December 18, 2006
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