Rexam PLC recently announced the start of negotiations with local union representatives regarding the restructuring of its German glass operation. This move follows the acquisitions of Nienburger Glass and Luner Glass in November 2002 and February 2003, respectively. The restructuring will lead to improved production efficiencies and manning levels, the optimization of capacity utilization across all plants, and the concentration of all support functions to one site. As a consequence, Rexam will close three of its older production lines in Germany. The restructuring will result in 235 redundancies. "The German glass container industry has suffered from overcapacity for many years," said Rolf Borjesson, chief executive. "Our recent acquisitions enable us to take action to redress our capacity situation and secure the competitiveness of our German operation. The restructuring has been accelerated by the introduction of the deposit system on one-way beverage packaging in Germany. In all, we now estimate annual cost saving synergies to be well ahead of our original projections."

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