A restructuring initiative in the "Flexible Foams" business area from Belgian Recticel (Brussels; www.recticel.com) is apparently not yet over despite having closed down several production sites in Spain and the UK over the last two years – see Plasteurope.com of 18.04.2013. The specialist for PU foams recently announced plans to shut down a Spanish foam production facility in La Eliana near Valencia. The plan is to move the production capacities to nearby Catarroja, where Recticel has another manufacturing site. The Belgians are cutting 16 jobs in conjunction with the facility closing, with its subsidiary, Recticel Iberica, divesting of an additional twelve jobs of its IPF engineering activities.

The company has again announced downward sliding revenues for the third quarter, with a 2.7% drop to EUR 308m. The Q3 results followed slides in both of the year's first two quarters of 9.5% and 4.4% respectively. Thus, in the first nine months of 2013, the company recorded revenues of EUR 940m – a 5.6% reduction against the same period in the previous year. On the bright side, the company saw its business in "Bedding" jump 2.7%, Flexible Foams was down 1.5% and Insulation with a 0.5 reduction barely remained stable. In contrast, the automotive segment shrank 13.6% against the same period in 2012.

The company's management said it will continue restructuring activities for the remainings weeks of 2013. The company offered no prognosis for the entire year. However, the automotive business might be able to turn things around for the Belgian company with the early December announcement of numerous new orders from German carmakers as well as from Volvo.