Bosses of a stricken plastics firm say they are "starting from scratch" by moving headquarters and trying to win back lost customers.
Eighty jobs were saved at Global Engineering Plastic Products, of Leicester, after it was bought by German firm Schwartz Technical Plastics Group. However, the firm said all its regular customers have "gone elsewhere" since it went into administration last November.
The company has revealed it is moving from its main premises in Forest Road, Humberstone, to a unit around the corner in Hastings Road, to cut costs. Another two units in the city will remain in place. Simon Gilbert, head of global sales, said: "Moving to the new warehouse is an efficiency thing.
"The size of the building isn't that much different but the building in Forest Road was bigger than what we needed and housing equipment we don't need to use. We're starting from zero and we need to make sure we get all our customers back.
"The economic downturn is the challenge but we're optimistic we can beat that. We've got customers that we can get back and we will build up the business from where we are now. We are contacting customers and so far the response has been very positive. There's a lot of hard work ahead and we don't know how long it's going to take. I'm feeling optimistic about the future and I'm very confident we're going to do well."
The firm, which produces a wide array of plastic products for customers ranging from aerospace to pharmaceuticals and packaging, is about to begin a fresh marketing campaign to attract new customers as well as former buyers.
Manufacturing halted because of the administration but has now resumed.
More than 200 jobs have been axed at the firm since last year. The group had occupied 11 factories across the city, which was reduced to three.
Its operations in Russia, Mexico, China and the Philippines were sold by the administrator, PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The company's financial difficulties were blamed on a number of problems that followed its split from Leicester firm Nylacast in January 2007.
Jan Scheffler, director of Global EPP, said it was impossible to say at this stage when the firm might begin recruiting again.
Jan said: "We don't want to make any promises. We want to make sure we don't exaggerate on things but we do believe that this is a very viable business.
"We want to make sure we will do our best to save jobs that are here now - having enough business to keep the people we've already got is the first step."
Source: Leicester Mercury
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