At the Nuremberg cable harness and wiring system manufacturer Leoni, production is running in the WestUkraine again despite the war. Since the beginning of the week, despite the curfew, work has been going on in two shifts again, said CEO Aldo Kamper (51) on Wednesday at the balance sheet press conference.
Around 4,000 of the 7,000 employees in the two plants near Lviv (Lemberg) – two thirds of them women – produced cable harnesses for the European car manufacturers again. Production has restarted to a limited extent. Leoni is approaching capacity from 40 percent to 60 to 70 percent. At the same time, part of the production is being hastily relocated to other countries. A lot goes to Romania and Serbia, where employees who have fled from the Ukraine are also looking for work, Kamper said. Tunisia and Morocco also step in. “We make the impossible possible.” Both plants in the Ukraine were temporarily idle due to the Ukraine war.
Companies like VW and BMW had to stop the tapes at times, because there were no supplies from Leoni and other cable harness manufacturers who also produce in the Ukraine. At Leoni, ten percent of the delivery volume for the European car manufacturers usually comes from there. The economic consequences of the war and the relocations would be borne at least in part by the car manufacturers, Kamper indicated: “We have found pragmatic solutions for the additional costs.”
Employees have to flee to air raid shelters again and again
Western Ukraine has so far been less affected by the war. “Fortunately, there is a certain normality,” said the Leoni boss. Again and again, the employees have to endure hours in the cold in air raid shelters – whether near the factory or their homes. As a result, they sometimes come to work overtired. The shifts would then be shortened. The work is voluntary, but many employees wanted to show that they and their country would not let themselves be defeated. That also applies to Leoni: “We are sticking to Ukraine.”
Because of the Ukraine crisis, the automotive supplier is assuming falling sales in the current year. The wiring system and cable specialist will probably not be able to meet the original target of around five billion euros, the company announced on Wednesday. Last year, Leoni increased its sales by almost a quarter to 5.1 billion euros. The bottom line was that the group loss had been pushed down from 330 to 48 million. The shares were listed unchanged in the morning.