Alcoa puts packaging foil arm up for sale as 13,500 job cuts planned

The mining and smelting business, based in Pittsburgh, revealed this week that it was looking to sell the division, which also serves the industrial sector as it looks to combat the recession.

Should the sale go through, it would leave Alcoa with three principal businesses in the packaging sector: can sheet/rigid packaging; formed aluminium container stock; and recycling. Alcoa also sold four of its packaging and consumer businesses to Rank Group last year for $2.7bn.

The proposed sale is just one of a range of projects designed to address the downturn. Others include: a global headcount reduction of 13,500 staff, or 13% of Alcoa’s workforce; an annual reduction in smelting output of 750,000 tonnes, or 18% of capacity; and the planned sale of three other non-core businesses.

In a statement, Alcoa president and chief executive Klaus Kleinfeld said that the company was facing “extraordinary times”.

“We are taking a wide-ranging set of aggressive, but prudent, measures to ensure that Alcoa maintains its competitive lead in today’s challenging markets,” he said.

Alcoa has already reduced its operations in the packaging industry after selling its packaging and consumer businesses to New Zealand’s Rank Group.

The sale, which included Closure Systems International, Consumer Products, Flexible Packaging and Reynolds Food Packaging, completed early last year.

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