Medical products manufacturer Nalge Nunc International Inc. is closing its manufacturing plant in Naperville, discontinuing some product lines and moving others to its Rochester, N.Y., factory.
The move will put 112 employees out of work. Layoffs began in April and are expected to be complete by mid-August, said a Naperville employee who asked not to be identified.
The employee could not say which of Nalge Nunc's Naperville product lines were expected to move to Rochester. Nalge Nunc's parent, Apogent Technologies Inc., owns the 103,000-sq.-ft. Naperville facility but leases its 24,000-sq.-ft. Nalge Nunc plant in Rochester.
An Apogent spokesman declined to comment on the closing and could not estimate its cost or how much Apogent hopes to save from the move.
A manufacturer of labware, medical products and recreational items, Nalge Nunc makes thousands of products, including Nalge Pur-brand polyurethane sanitary tubing and Nalgene-brand thermoplastic elastomer gaskets, tips and plugs for laboratory and medical uses.
Notice of the Naperville closing preceded by two weeks Apogent's announcement it will be acquired by one of its major distributors, Fisher Scientific International Inc., in a stock-for-stock deal valued at about $2.7 billion. Pending regulatory approvals, the acquisition is expected to close sometime this summer, the Apogent spokesman said.
He would not comment on what effect the pending merger might have had on the decision to close the Naperville factory.
Apogent has been shedding product lines for years, particularly tubing products. In 1999, when it was named Sybron International Inc., it sold its Nalge Process Technologies Group to Norton Performance Plastics Corp. The group had annual sales of more than $45 million from four companies that make ``clean'' fluid-transfer tubing and components: Sani-Tech Inc., Acutech Plastics Inc., Flexible Components and Pure Fit.
The company incurred $13.5 million in restructuring charges during fiscal year 2003, including $3.67 million in severance payments and $1.22 million in facility closure costs. During the first quarter of fiscal 2004, it incurred $4.6 million in restructuring charges and said it expects to make cash payments of $1.7 million in restructuring costs this fiscal year and about $1.4 million in 2005 and beyond.
Apogent posted a net loss of $11.7 million in fiscal year 2003 on net sales of $1.1 billion, primarily due to the payment of debt. The company employs about 7,000 worldwide.