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Solvay Creates Shared Services Center in Brazil
10 November 2009:
New unit in Curitiba to improve competitiveness of Solvay Group
Solvay announces today that it has decided to create a new shared services center in Curitiba, Brazil, which will offer a number of centralized transactional finance and accounting services to Solvay affiliates in the Americas. The new unit will be modeled on the Solvay Shared Services ("3S") created in Lisbon in 2005, which carries out a number of repetitive, standardized operations in finance and human resources management for Solvay affiliates in Europe and worldwide. The Curitiba unit will also act as backup for the center in Lisbon, consequently limiting the operational risk of the entire 3S system.
The "New 3S" center will be effectively set up in the coming months and its operations will gradually begin in the course of 2010. Once it is running at cruising speed, it will employ a total of 70 people.
Solvay selected Curitiba following a detailed assessment, which included selection criteria such as overall cost, availability of skilled work force, attractiveness of the location, image, social and political conditions, among others. In addition, Solvay is familiar with operations in Brazil, as the Group has been present there for nearly 70 years.
"Our 3S center in Lisbon has managed to cut the Group's administrative costs, while minimizing social consequences," commented Bernard de Laguiche, Chief Financial Officer, Solvay. "At the same time, we have improved the quality of our internal transactional services, which ultimately benefits our clients. We want to extend that fruitful experience to other locations, in order to further enhance our competitiveness," he added.
"I am particularly proud that the operational model developed by 3S in Lisbon will be replicated in a twin unit overseas," said Guy Mercier, General Manager of Solvay Shared Services. "Other parts of the world will now benefit from our innovations and competitive processes," he said.
SOLVAY is an international chemical and pharmaceutical Group with headquarters in Brussels. It employs more than 29,000 people in 50 countries. In 2008, its consolidated sales amounted to EUR 9.5 billion, generated by its three sectors of activity: Chemicals, Plastics and Pharmaceuticals. Solvay is listed on the NYSE Euronext stock exchange in Brussels (NYSE Euronext: SOLB.BE - Bloomberg: SOLB.BB - Reuters: SOLBt.BR). Details are available at www.solvay.com.
Source: NYSE Euronext
