Abbott (NYSE:ABT) said it plans to shutter the Webster, Texas plant it acquired along with IDEV Technologies last year and move production and 50 jobs to another site in California.
Abbott Vascular, which is in the middle of a restructuring plan aimed at streamlining operations and improvinge earnings, revealed the closing of the Houston-area facility in a Sept. 17 Workforce Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act filing.
Santa Clara, Calif.-based Abbott is moving the jobs to Temecula, near San Diego, after picking up the Webster facility last year via its $310 million acquisition of Idev Technologies and its peripheral device portfolio, the Houston Business Journal reported.
Abbott Labs is restructuring its vascular, nutrition and diagnostics units, expecting to an record $80 million charge this year for severance and other 1-time expenses. Abbott Vascular has been dealing with a decline in sales of its line of drug-eluting stents in part due to market-share losses, while recording an improvement in the Supera line of stents used in peripheral blood vessels it acquired from Idev.
“It was clear to the entire organization that our … [operating costs] in particular were higher than they should have been and we’ve been working very hard to address that through process improvements in the back office," CFO Thomas Freyman said during a July conference call with investment analysts. "I wouldn’t say we’re done; we still have a few things we want to do. What we have not been doing is tuning back on … things that really drive sales and growth. We’ve tried very hard to sustain and even increase investment in those areas."