French company Treves leaving Slovenia

Trebnje – The Slovenian subsidiary of the French car interior components maker Treves is to be shut down in September, which means a hundred people will be left jobless. The announcement comes after the plant based in the village of Bič near Trebnje was hit by a massive fire in January.

The decision to withdraw from Slovenia after 16 years was recently made by the core company in France and Treves CEO Andrej Baškovič confirmed the news for the STA on Monday.

According to unofficial information obtained by the STA, the decision is related to the damage caused by the January fire and the Novo Mesto-based Revoz, one of Treves’s main clients, securing only mid-term orders for the Renault Twingo model guaranteed, while its fate after 2024 is not known.

In line with a statement from the French company Treves SA, obtained by the STA, the plant in Slovenia will be shut down because of poor business prospects. The core company also decided not to renovate the factory after the January fire.

The company employs 102 people and will be shut down in September.

Treves pledged to take measures to reduce the negative impact on workers as much as possible. Information on the number of dismissed workers, the date of lay-offs and possible measures will be presented after talks with all stakeholders.

The employees were informed of the plant closure on Thursday, Treves said.

In January, a blaze engulfed the majority of the Treves building, damaging a part of the production lines for car carpets and sound insulation, as well as offices, with parts of the roof also caving in.

After the fire, a part of production was temporarily moved to a sister company in Spain. The supply to Treves’s buyers in Slovenia, Austria, France, Italy and Slovakia was restored in three weeks.

Baškovič announced renovation of the parts of the factory affected by the fire at the time, as the company does not own the building.

A plan for renovation was said to have been in the making and the renovation was being discussed with the owner of the facility. Baškovič assessed at the time that production was to be fully restored in a few months.

The company lost half of its facilities, virtually all of its machines and almost all raw materials to the fire. Most of the tools were destroyed or damaged and had to be repaired to restore regular supply to the company’s clients.

The CEO assessed the damage caused by the fire, which also led to a four-day suspension of production at Revoz, at several million euro.

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