The worst fears of about 900 skilled manufacturing employees at the iconic Freescale Semiconductor plant at East Kilbride were confirmed yesterday when managers and staff were summoned to meetings to hear the Texan owner planned to exit production at the site.
All of the manufacturing posts looked in grave doubt, with sources informing The Herald that venture capitalist-owned Freescale had said it would try to find a buyer for the facility in an attempt to avoid full-scale closure of production.
However, while Freescale looks set to retain its research and development operations at East Kilbride, closure would now appear to be the most likely outcome for the manufacturing unit. The chances of finding a buyer for the manufacturing plant appear slim, given the electronics industry is shifting ever more work to low-cost locations in Eastern Europe and Asia, and the past dearth of demand for other big vacant sites in Scotland.
There were suggestions yesterday that Freescale might, ironically, ramp up production in the short term as it enters what is expected to be its final year of manufacturing in Lanarkshire to build up stocks to sell to existing customers.
Freescale provided no public comment yesterday on East Kilbride, in spite of repeated inquiries from The Herald.
The plant, which now makes embedded chips that provide intelligence for products ranging from car engines to mobile phones, was built by Motorola in 1969. It is a linchpin of the Scottish electronics sector.
Cessation of production would be another bitter blow for Silicon Glen, which has in recent years suffered a painful shake-out which has included the closures of Motorola's Bathgate plant and NEC's Livingston facility.
The Herald revealed last month that fears were mounting over the future of the Freescale plant at East Kilbride, with the company declining at that stage to deny a claim made to the newspaper that up to 900 skilled manufacturing jobs could be axed under a secret project named "Claymore".
Dawn Bliss, media relations spokeswoman at East Kilbride, had said when asked initially on June 7 by The Herald about this claim: "I am not aware of Project Claymore. I have never heard of a Project Claymore."
Bliss, having pledged at that stage to make inquiries within Texas-based Freescale, was later that same day far less categoric when she said: "There is no comment on Claymore. The company doesn't comment on rumours."
As The Herald projected last month, the signal from Freescale yesterday was that it would keep its R&D "lab" at East Kilbride. This lab, which is among other things developing new chips to support the next generation of broadband wireless connectivity, employs about 300 people.
The remainder of the total workforce of about 1250 at East Kilbride is made up of central support staff in functions such as human resources and finance.
Freescale was spun out of Motorola in 2004 and then taken off the New York Stock Exchange late last year through a $17.6bn acquisition by venture capitalists Blackstone, Texas Pacific, Carlyle and Permira.
Rob Hatley, corporate media spokesman for Freescale in the US, declined to return repeated calls made yesterday by The Herald. Bliss was out of the office. Her voice-mail message referred inquiries to Firefly, Freescale's external public relations adviser, in London.
Firefly attempted to secure a statement from Freescale's European headquarters in Paris but no such response had arrived by last night.
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