General Cable will close one plant; study two others

Highland Heights, KY—General Cable Corp. announced Oct. 28 that it is closing its manufacturing facility in Taunton, MA. This 131,000 square-ft plant employs 77 people, and produces bare copper strand and PVC jacketing compounds. It supplies these products to General Cable's other manufacturing

The company adds that it will incur an approximately $7 million charge in 2003's fourth quarter related to closing the plant, and estimates about $4 million of this charge will be in cash.

General Cable also announced that it has started feasibility studies at its manufacturing facilities in South Hadley, MA, and Marion, IN. The studies will examine whether the company should continue operations at these locations, or whether their product lines should be moved to other company facilities, or outsourced to a wire conductor fabricator from the South Hadley facility.

The company plans to announce the results of its studies either later this quarter or early in 2004. If it decides to rationalize these two additional cable facilities, it would take additional charges over the period of time that the operations are wound down. The estimated cost to rationalize these facilities could reach $20 million, with cash costs amounting to about a third of that amount.