DUNFERMLINE, SCOTLAND -- The Simclar Group has closed a pair of manufacturing sites in Scotland due to slowing demand, according to several news reports. The EMS company said facilities in Irvine and Kilwinning would be shuttered and a total of 420 employees laid off.

According to BBC News, a Simclar spokesman said, "The current market conditions have made the continued operation of Simclar (Ayrshire) impossible. Simclar has made every attempt to restructure and save the business but it would not be in the best interests of the group as a whole to continue to do so in the long-term.

"The recent loss of a key contract, rising costs of production and relentless market pressures have made continuing unsustainable."

That "key contract" may have been with a nearby NCR plant that also recently closed. Central Ayrshire Labour MP Brian Donohoe told the Glasgow Evening Times that the closings were directly linked to the NCR closing. "Both companies were feeding off one another. When NCR went down, it was the last blow for Simclar -- it threatened everything else."

Separately, the company has reportedly inked a deal under which it would move its operations and 115 jobs in Springfield, MO, to Ozark, MO.

Ozark granted Simclar a tax incentive under which the company donated $1 million to a local not-for-profit corporation, which in turn will buy buildings, machinery and equipment and lease them back to Simclar for $1 per year for five years. Simclar will receive roughly $500,000 in tax credits, the paper said.

The Ozark Newsstand quoted Mayor Donna McQuay as saying, “We've been working on this for about a year. The deal is done; they are already doing the infill. They hope to be in soon."

The new digs will house the company’s backplane fabrication division, Simclar Interconnect Technologies, which it acquired from Northrop Grumman. The company will move in early March, a spokesman told the paper.

 

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