Procter to close Clairol Connecticut HQ
Clairol headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, by 2010 as the
company seeks to enhance efficiencies in its Hair Color division.
The plan is to phase out production during the course of the next two and a half years and to relocate that production to bigger facilities, namely its plants in Andover, Massachusetts and Mariscala in Mexico. The company says it plans to relocate approximately 150 of its 615 workers at the plant, who will be incorporated into new positions within the company. Approximately 180 of the staff are eligible for retirement, while 285 positions will be phased out. The rest will mainly be incorporated into P&G's headquarters in Cincinnati. A company spokesperson said that the move was part of P&G's drive to cut down on smaller production facility in an effort to eventually have a small number of large production facilities throughout North America. "We decided to focus on having fewer, bigger site to be competitive," said Brent Miller, a spokesperson at the Stamford facility. "We're trying to build additional scale and additional efficiency." Ultimately this will enable the company to invest more in technology-driven spend for the remaining facilities with the goal of increasing efficiencies and reducing production costs. P&G inherited the Stamford facility after it bought up the Clairol business from Bristol-Myers Squibb back in 2001. Since then the company says that the facility has been evaluated every three years, and that after the most recent evaluation, it had decided that it was no longer viable. Clairol's leading brands are the Herbal Essence hair care range and the Nice 'n' Easy hair color range, but also includes hair color brands such as Hydrience, Textures and Tones and Balsam Color. When the company was bought up by P&G in 2001 it had estimated sales of $1.6bn worldwide, and continues to be one of the leading names in the hair color and hair care categories.
