Restructuring events
European Restructuring Monitor (ERM)
The restructuring events database contains factsheets with data on large-scale restructuring events reported in the principal national media and company websites in each EU Member State. This database was created in 2002.
Hungarian lighting system manufacturer, Tungsram, will be liquidated after the largest creditor refused the firm's debt settlement proposal.
Demand for the firm's products plummeted during the coronavirus pandemic while the soaring costs of energy and materials led to a loss of profitability. As a result, the management announced a mass layoff of 1,600 employees in April (HU-Tungsram-2022), along with the ending of the production of traditional lightbulbs. During the following five months, the number of employed fell to less than 1000 from almost 3000 before the layoff.
Since the firm has been a strategic partner of the government since 2019, the president of the company trade union expressed shock over the failure of the debt settlement procedure. Eximbank, the state-owned creditor of the firm that thwarted the debt settlement agreement, said that its utmost priority was to ensure the repayment of the loan formerly given to Tungsram and thereby prevent a loss of state assets. According to a trade union official at one of the firm's plants, the workers are afraid that they would not receive severance payments in the name of the priority of recovering state assets.
The management says they will keep looking for investors during the liquidation process. They will also try continuing the profitable activities in the firm's smaller subsidiaries.
Eurofound (2022), Tungsram Operations, Closure in Hungary, factsheet number 107824, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://apps.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/107824.
Eurofound’s ERM restructuring legislation database offers an overview of key restructuring-related regulations in the EU Member States and Norway. Its content is continuously updated to reflect any changes made by national legislators in response to, for instance, policy shifts, legal...
Can Europe still achieve its ambitions for battery manufacturing? To answer this, the article looks at data from Eurofound’s European Restructuring Monitor and explores what recent large-scale restructuring events reveal about the state of play in the EU battery sector.
This working paper offers a comprehensive methodological overview of the European Restructuring Monitor (ERM) databases. Even though the methodology has not changed over time, new categories have been added, and the way it has been used by researchers and policymakers...
This Eurofound research paper explores key trends in restructuring in recent years, highlighting the companies that announced the largest job losses and job gains in the EU. It builds on an analysis of company announcements recorded in Eurofound’s European Restructuring...
In 2023, thousands of workers in big tech lost their jobs. Meta, Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Salesforce had been considered to offer good and secure jobs up to this point. Giants of the information and communication technology (ICT) sector,...
In 2024, the automotive sector in the EU came to the fore in public and policy discussions. The focus was on the slowdown in electric vehicle (EV) sales, rising global competition, belated investments in new technologies, and the potential closure...
