CLEVELAND -- Diamond Shamrock Corp., which moved its corporate headquarters from Cleveland to Texas last year, has now announced it hopes to sell six of its divisions.
In a speech to 1,500 Cleveland area employees Wednesday night, Diamond Shamrock Chairman William Bricker said the divisions are plastics, metal coatings, domestic functional polymers, foods, animal nutrition and medical products.
The news was unsettling for Greater Cleveland because the six divisions employ about 250 persons in the area. They include 69 workers at the plastics division's Cleveland office and 92 plastics personnel at Diamond Shamrock's Evans research center in Concord Township near Painesville.
The metal division has 46 employees at its facility in Chardon and the functional polymers and animal nutrition divisions in the downtown area employ 15 and 34 persons, respectively.
'Should all six divisions be divested, we would continue to have 1,500 employes here,' Bricker told the workers. 'And all would be in parts of the company that are strong and vital ingredients in our program for the 1980s.'
Bricker did not indicate that there are any companies interested in buying the divisions and he set no timetable for the divestiture.
Diamond Shamrock has switched emphasis to the energy and technology fields in recent years. The switch began shortly after the 1967 merger between Cleveland-based Diamond Alkali Corp. and Shamrock Oil & Gas Co. of Texas.
Bricker said the company intends to remain a factor in the chemical industry. The headquarters and research center of the company's chemical group are located in northern Ohio.
'For the future, I see our research center involved in energy-related projects, and continuing to provide important support for chemicals,' Bricker said.
