Celhart Donaris Braila paper producer, with 6.4m-euro turnover in the first nine months of last year, a company controlled by businessman Vladimir Cohn, decided to freeze operations of the Braila-based plant and lay off over 100 employees.
"We stopped production at Braila plant due to the lack of orders and market difficulties, and we'll give a large part of employees redundancy notices. Production at the paper plant will not be resumed this year. This operation has seen quite a collapse," stated Vladimir Cohn, who controls the consortium made up of Ecopack Ghimbav and Ecopaper Zarnesti, Celhart Donaris shareholders.
Thus, from a headcount of almost 1,530 employees in 2003, the year of privatisation, Celhart Donaris got to almost 140 employees last year and entered the list of firms that decided to suspend their activities. The company reached turnover worth 11m euros in 2007, up 8% year-on-year, and registered losses standing at 2,7m euros.
Whereas in 2007 the cellulose and paper plant still employed around 550 people, the closing of the cellulose installation cut the number of employees by more than half. The company, which this year also gave up production of paper for corrugated cardboard, with a total capacity of 60,000 tonnes per year, last week sent a notification for the layoff of around 104 employees to the Employment Agency of Braila. Vladimir Cohn did not specify how many employees would be dismissed in the following period.
Celhart Donaris, which is listed on the Stock Exchange, in the first nine months of last year logged losses of around 870,000 euros (3.13m RON), almost 4.3% higher than in the same period of the previous year. The company's turnover was down 2.5%, at 6.4m euros. "Losses are almost flat, at the level of the nine months, they haven't increased significantly," Vladimir Cohn stated.
The other main producers of paper for corrugated cardboard operating domestically are EcoPaper Zarnesti, Ambro Suceava, Vrancart Adjud and Celrom Turnu Severin.
Vladimir Cohn, 64, a former shareholder in Dinamo football team, is also a direct shareholder in Melody, Industrial Engineering and Romcarton companies, according to Trade Registry data.
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