Bangkok--5 Feb--Indorama Polyester Industries
Indorama Polyester Industries Plc, part of the Indorama Ventures Limited (IVL) has undertaken a major hiring spree in a market when most companies in Thailand are either on a hiring freeze or are retrenching their employees to cope with the global economic downturn.
Indorama Polyesters Industries (IPI) formerly known as Tuntex (Thailand) Plc prior to its acquisition by IVL, has recently hired around 500 people at its plant in Map-ta-phut Industrial Estate in Rayong and plans to continue to hire even more as its production ramps up.
“We have been quite fortunate as we have managed to get some very highly qualified staff to work with us, including some of the old staff that had previously worked in the plant prior to its closure,” Aloke Lohia, the chief executive for IVL.
Tuntex (Thailand) which was an ailing polyester firm had never managed to recover from the economic financial crisis of 1997 due to its high level of leverage and its inefficient capital structure. Tuntex as it was earlier called was under rehabilitation with the creditors holding the majority say but with lack of know-how in the polyester business, the creditors were unable revive the company’s fortunes for more than a decade and finally decided to start negotiations with Indorama group for a possible partnership.
IVL, which has a successful track record of identifying and turning around good assets decided to undertake the due diligence process and decided to invest cash in newly issued shares to acquire a 65% stake.
Subsequently, IVL acquired shares from other major shareholders to increase its shareholding to 97% which triggered a tender offer as per the Securities and Exchange Commission’s rules in Thailand. IVL is currently undertaking a tender offer of the remaining shares of Tuntex (Thailand) now renamed IPI.
“The decision to purchase IPI was not very difficult for us because the assets, the location and the product quality, were things we knew that we could sell,” Mr. Lohia said.
The initial problem with IPI, he concedes, was how IVL would run the operations after most of the employees had left the firm over the 10-year period when Tuntex was running its plant on an ad-hoc basis.
“We decided to retain the old staff and ask them if they would be willing to continue and the response was tremendous, we now have more than 200 people who were employees of the company from the past,” he said.
Mr. Lohia concedes currently it has become easier to hire good quality staff and companies that are looking for the long-term should take this opportunity to hire good people to work for them.
“Today we have around 700 employees and have re-started the production and we plan to hire a total of 1,000 when the plan runs at its full capacity sometime very soon,” Mr. Lohia says.
IPI, which is located in Rayong province, did not have much difficulty in searching for good employees as many companies in that part of the country are retrenching staff.
To top IPI’s credential is the fact that Indorama group has in the past acquired Indo-Poly (Thailand) in 1997 during the peak of the financial crisis and managed to turn it around to become profitable.
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