Tokyo-based Teijin Group – a global conglomerate including man-made fibers, films and plastics,
home healthcare and pharmaceuticals, trading and retail, and information technology businesses – is
restructuring its Polyester Fibers business as part of its implementation of a new basic management
policy, announced in April
(See ”
Teijin
To Implement New Business Strategies,” April 28, 2009).
By the end of fiscal year (FY) 2010, Teijin will discontinue all polyester filament
production at the Matsuyama plant in Japan and move that operation to Thailand, which will become
the core polyester filament production base. Japan-based raw-material polymerization for polyester
fibers also will be consolidated in Thailand.
This year, Teijin will close the polyester recycling operations at its plant in Tokuyama,
Japan, and focus on fiber-to-fiber recycling at Matsuyama. The company also will move domestic
polyester staple fiber production from Matsuyama to Tokuyama by the end of FY 2010. The Matsuyama
plant will become the company’s main research and development base, and the Tokuyama and Iwakuni,
Japan, plants will focus on high-value-added polyester fiber production. By FY 2011, polyester
fiber production for unprofitable industrial applications will be reduced at Iwakuni.
Spartanburg-based Teijin Monofilament US Inc., which manufactures and sells monofilaments,
will be liquidated. Japan-based Teijin Nestex Ltd., which functions as the core textile yarn-dyeing
plant for Teijin Group’s textiles business, also will be liquidated.
Teijin will concentrate on its environmentally friendly and high-performance businesses. The
company also has taken initiatives to help restructure the value chain, including the planned
establishment in December 2009 of a joint venture (JV) with Japan-based Suminoe Textile Co. Ltd. to
produce automotive seat fabrics, and acquiring equity in a specialty private-label apparel retailer
that Japan-based Flandre Co. Ltd. has established.
In other company news, DuPont Teijin Films – a 50/50 JV between Wilmington, Del.-based DuPont
and Teijin – will consolidate all US polyethylene terephthalate film production at its Hopewell,
Va., site as part of the venture’s continuing reorganization of its US and European operations. The
plant in Florence, S.C., will close, affecting 210 manufacturing employees, of which 40 are working
under contract.
August 19, 2009