FRANKFURT, Germany—Tristone Flowtech Group GmbH suspended production at its plants in the U.S. and Mexico, bringing to eight the total number of sites the hose maker temporarily has closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
At the end of March, the firm shuttered manufacturing facilities in Italy, France, Spain, Poland and Slovakia. Tristone's plant in India has been closed since mid-March when the Corona virus forced a nationwide lock down. The moves have created substantial partial unemployment across the board at the company's plants.
In addition, the firm is in discussions with workers at Tristone's headquarters in Frankfurt, its Shared Services Center in the Czech Republic, the Engineering Center in France and the Sales and Engineering Center in the U.S. to implement partial unemployment and similar measures.
According to the company, the shutdowns will continue for at least one to two weeks and as long as four weeks, depending on customer needs and the location of the facility.
Both of the firm's plants in China are running once more at close to planned levels, which is helping in the current situation, the company said.
The temporary closures mean that about 4,000 employees are on forced vacation and partial unemployment out of 5,200 in the company's 12 production plants and 17 legal entities around the world, said Guenter Froelich, president and CEO of Tristone.
"At the moment we are not considering the release of temporary staffers in our production plants and central service companies, but this would be the next step if the situation would continue," he said.
Tristone said it is unsure what kind of financial impact the coronavirus pandemic will have on the company's financials moving forward. The company, however, is well positioned to weather the storm.
"It is, at the moment, hard to predict the impact of the next weeks, but we assume at the moment that there will be a slow recovery of the economy starting end of April in Europe and beginning of May in NAFTA," Chief Financial Officer Sonja Rossteuscher-Schuetze said in a statement. "With our Group equity ratio of 40 percent and the solid cash position, we expect to manage the current crisis without financing support of the German government, excluding usage of extended partial unemployment and tax regulations."