CK Witco to cut jobs

Witco has grown rapidly recently, with its acquisition in September of Crompton & Knowles, which had itself recently bought Uniroyal Chemicals. It produces polymers, petroleum additives and organosilanes, and has production sites across North America, the UK and Europe.

Speaking to an analysts' meeting in New York, Calarco said that he is accelerating the cost-cutting plan he implemented when he joined the company at the time of the merger. He is aiming to cut $60million from fixed costs, of which $7million each will come from plant and office consolidations and outside services; $6million from improving purchasing and logistics efficiency; and $40million from redundancies. In the meantime, the company will be pushing hard for growth in the silanes, urethane prepolymer and dispersion and EPDM markets.

`The internal problems at the time of the merger were painful, and I'll freely admit it took our attention away from the customer,' said Calarco, who is also president and chairman of the company. `We lost business, and we're going to have to work hard to get it back.'