Apollo to refocus Dutch plant, trim employment by 750

ENSCHEDE, Netherlands—Seeking to ensure the future of its tire manufacturing operations in Enschede, Apollo Vredestein B.V. is planning to refocus the 73-year-old plant on high-performance passenger and agricultural tires.

The plan, disclosed March 5 in a meeting with employees at the factory, calls for the phaseout of certain product lines, which will result in the elimination of 750 jobs over the coming 24 months, Apollo Vredestein said.

"The operating environment for Apollo Vredestein—and the entire tire industry—has changed significantly over the last few years," said Benoit Rivallant, president of Apollo Vredestein in Europe. "Despite large investments made in recent years in modernizing the plant, the factory employees' dedication and continuous efforts to make the site economically viable have proved ineffective against the accelerated market transformation and has required a strategic adaption of the site to secure it has a sustainable future in the long run."

At last report, Apollo Tyres Ltd. listed 1,333 production-related employees at the plant, which it acquired in 2009 from Vredestein Banden B.V.

"After a deep analysis of the profitability and sustainability of the products currently produced in the Enschede Plant, we regrettably could not arrive at a different conclusion," Rivallant said.

"We are aware that our employees and their families will face a great deal of uncertainty as a result of this difficult decision. They are a committed and dedicated workforce throughout the many years and that has strongly influenced our attempt to secure a sustainable future."

Apollo Vredestein said its strategic aim is to specialize the Enschede plant on agricultural tires and high-value passenger tires with short production runs. The plant will become a "center of excellence for quality, innovation and production agility."

Apollo Vredestein did not comment on the plant's expected capacity once the restructuring is complete. Its capacity now is listed as 6.7 million units a year.

Enschede is a city of about 160,000 in eastern Netherlands on the border with Germany.

Gurgaon, India-based Apollo has a second plant in Europe, near Gyongyoshalasz, Hungary, that it opened in 2017. The plant—the company's sixth worldwide—opened with the capacity to produce 5.5 million passenger and light truck tires and 675,000 commercial vehicle tires per year.