British American Tobacco is planning to close at least part of its Bayreuth plant in Germany and move cigarette production to one of its facilities in Croatia, Romania, Hungary or Poland, according to a Total Croatia News story relayed by the TMA.
BAT’s supervisory board was expected to announce its decision shortly.
The story said that the Bayreuth facility, which currently employs 400 workers, would likely continue to process fine-cut tobacco, given the demand for roll-your-own cigarettes.
With a 20 percent share, BAT is in third place on the German market, after Philip Morris International and Reemtsma Cigarettenfabrik (Imperial Brands Plc).
The ‘restructuring’ was expected to take a few years, the story said, during which time BAT would be ‘encouraging workers to leave voluntarily by offering an attractive severance package or early retirement options’.
BAT had already moved its financial operations, information technology and tobacco procurement units from Hamburg to London.