Boss and daughter fired – Threat of mass dismissal at Flurlingen ZH: German owners of Swiss Qmedics are cleaning up

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Strong tobacco for employees of the Swiss medical technology manufacturer Qmedics in Flurlingen ZH. An employee who wished to remain anonymous spoke to Blick on behalf of his colleagues: “We were unexpectedly called to a general meeting on Tuesday. There, a new CEO announced that our previous boss had been fired, a department was being closed, and major staff reductions were planned. That’s not all: The company will also be given a new name.

Shock for the workforce; There is great uncertainty. Founded in 2008, Qmedics was acquired by Bentley Innomed in Hechingen, Germany, in July 2023. “We were promised that nothing would change under the new owners,” the employee complains. “After a few months, everything turned around.”

New owner is cleaning

When asked about this, a spokesperson for Bentley Innomed confirmed: Previous Qmedis boss Anita Patteet and her daughter Liesbeth Rebsamen, who worked as assistant to the CEO, have been terminated. He did not comment on his reasons. Swiss Armin Kiser (55) is now the new CEO. It comes from Translumina, a central manufacturer of catheters and stents – pay attention! – in Hechingen.

Kiser needs to “carry out the necessary transformation and drive forward the planned growth in the catheter space.” According to a Qmedics spokesperson, the company has recently been “unable to cover its expenses”.

Context needed here: Qmedics manufactures 80 percent of all balloon catheters used with Bentley’s covered stents. Bentley, on the other hand, is responsible for approximately 70 percent of the Swiss company’s sales.

Qmedics’ defunct division manufactures stents. Qmedics is no longer allowed to produce this product line for “competitive reasons”. Therefore, “capacities need to be adjusted”. The remaining 30 percent of sales revenues are obtained from this region. According to the spokesperson, layoffs are likely to occur in a similar percentage range.

Approximately 30 positions, employing approximately 100 Qmedic employees, will be affected. The employee talks about 50 jobs that could be lost. In both cases, this is mass dismissal. The company wants to provide clarity within two weeks.

The German factory owners want to continue the relocation of production from Flurlingen to Frauenfeld TG. According to the spokesperson, the plan is to “move production of a component of a new Bentley product from the Hechingen production facility to the new Frauenfeld production facility.” The move should be completed in the second half of 2024 at the latest. According to Bentley, moving to Germany is out of the question, as employees fear.

However, employees need to get used to the new name “Bentley Schweiz AG”. Ultimately, according to the spokesperson, there are considerations that “employees affected by the capacity reduction should receive a payment from Bentley as voluntary assistance calculated from July 2023 until the date of departure.”

Source :Blick