Playtex Products Renews Corporate HQ Lease

WESTPORT, CT-Playtex Products Inc. has decided to keep its corporate headquarters here although it is moving forward with plans to reduce its worldwide workforce by 20% and its corporate headquarters space here by about 16%.After a review of its options in the region, Playtex will keep its corporate headquarters at Nyala Farms Corporate Center.

The personal care and consumer products manufacturing firm signed a six-year lease renewal for its 59,000 sf offices at the local complex, Cushman & Wakefield officials say. Playtex, which first took occupancy at Nyala Farms 11 years ago, had leased 75,000 sf of space there prior to the lease renewal transaction.

Paul H. Kauffman, executive director, Stephen Baker, senior director, and Gregory V. Frisoli, director of Cushman & Wakefield, serve as exclusive leasing agent to building ownership, Nyala Farms Corp., in the marketing of approximately 80,000 sf of available space in the 372,207-sf, five building office complex. Jim Randel of Rand Real Estate represented Playtex.

Playtex reported on Tuesday that as part of a realignment of its businesses it would be reducing its worldwide workforce by more than 300 positions by the end of this year. Company officials say the job reductions will be made via attrition, early retirement and layoffs. At deadline, it was not known how many job reductions are planned for the company’s corporate headquarters.

Some of the other restructuring initiatives announced by the company include: consolidation of the company’s US/International division structure to a product category structure, realignment of its sales and marketing organizations and outsourcing its gloves production to Malaysia. The company manufactures and distributes Playtex tampons, Playtex infant feeding products, Playtex gloves, Wet Ones, Banana Boat, Baby Magic, Diaper Genie, Mr. Bubble, Binaca and Ogilvie.

“We painstakingly went through all of our operations and have taken some very difficult but necessary actions to adjust the company’s cost structure,” states president and CEO Neil DeFeo. “These actions are required in order to enable Playtex to compete more effectively.” Charges related to the business realignment are expected to run between $17 million to $19 million by year’s end, of which $11 million will be recorded in the company’s fourth quarter 2004 financial filings. The company expects the realignment to save between $12 million to $14 million this year and between $22 million to $24 million in 2006.