The restructuring events database contains factsheets with data on large-scale restructuring events reported in the principal national media and company websites in each EU Member State. This database was created in 2002.
Manufacturing Manufacture Of Computer, Electrical Electronic And Optical Products Manufacture Of Electrical Equipment 27.40 - Manufacture of electric lighting equipment
750 jobs Number of planned job losses
Announcement Date
7 November 2022
Employment effect (start)
7 November 2022
Foreseen end date
Description
Hungarian lighting system manufacturer, Tungsram, will be liquidated after the largest creditor refused the firm's debt settlement proposal.
Demand for the firm's products plummeted during the coronavirus pandemic while the soaring costs of energy and materials led to a loss of profitability. As a result, the management announced a mass layoff of 1,600 employees in April (HU-Tungsram-2022), along with the ending of the production of traditional lightbulbs. During the following five months, the number of employed fell to less than 1000 from almost 3000 before the layoff.
Since the firm has been a strategic partner of the government since 2019, the president of the company trade union expressed shock over the failure of the debt settlement procedure. Eximbank, the state-owned creditor of the firm that thwarted the debt settlement agreement, said that its utmost priority was to ensure the repayment of the loan formerly given to Tungsram and thereby prevent a loss of state assets. According to a trade union official at one of the firm's plants, the workers are afraid that they would not receive severance payments in the name of the priority of recovering state assets.
The management says they will keep looking for investors during the liquidation process. They will also try continuing the profitable activities in the firm's smaller subsidiaries.
Eurofound (2022), Tungsram Operations, Closure in Hungary, factsheet number 107824, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/107824.
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