Serbian glassmaker Srpska Fabrika Stakla (SFS) said on 22 March 2004 that it will lay off 340 employees by the end of April 2004, ahead of its privatisation.
The employees to be made redundant compri…
Serbian glassmaker Srpska Fabrika Stakla (SFS) said on 22 March 2004 that it will lay off 340 employees by the end of April 2004, ahead of its privatisation. The employees to be made redundant comprise some 10% of the SFS staff, said company director general Slobodan Baletic, adding that the number of redundancies has been agreed with trade unions. Greece“s Yioula Glassworks offered EUR 35 million (USD 43.3 million) for a 70% stake in SFS in a tender held in the Summer of 2003. Yioula asked SFS and the Serbian Government to set up schemes for rescheduling the large debts of the Serbian company; SFS owes USD 20 million (EUR 16.2 million) to the gas trading unit of Serbian oil and gas company Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS), Energogas, and a further USD 6.8 million (EUR 5.5 million) to other suppliers, it was reported in December 2003. Youla reportedly asked for a reduction in the SFS workforce of between 1,800 and 2,000 people to 1,600 employees.