Fullerton Printing Plant Closure to Cost 300 Jobs : Layoffs: Swiss-owned Ringier America Inc. has been losing money and will shut down its Orange County facility this year.

Three hundred workers at a Swiss-owned printing plant here were jolted Thursday with the news that the owner will permanently close the facility later this year and terminate all employees.

Ringier America Inc., a subsidiary of the Swiss printing giant Ringier A.G., said the closing is due to “general economic conditions and poor profitability.” Bill A. Gibeaut, vice president and general manager of the Fullerton division, said the plant has been losing money, but that the shutdown was unexpected.

About 200 magazines, including L.A. Style, Newport Beach 714, Body Building, a wide variety of trade publications and several real estate magazines are printed at the plant. Ringier will attempt to keep some of the contracts by moving the work to its facilities in Phoenix and elsewhere, Gibeaut said..

Layoffs will begin July 1, and the plant will be completely shut down by year-end. Employees, including Gibeaut, are not being offered work elsewhere at the company.

Gibeaut said the plant workers, who were informed of the decision in shift meetings Thursday, were surprised by the news but did not seem bitter. “They’ve been through so many ownerships, so much uncertainty, and with the lack of profits, there was a feeling that it was inevitable.”

Ringier America, one of the nation’s largest commercial printers, purchased the Fullerton operation and seven other plants from W.A. Krueger last year. Krueger, in turn, had purchased the facility from Rotary Offset Printers in late 1986.

Robert C. Miller, senior vice president of Ringier America, said Fullerton “was not a particularly strong player when we acquired it and has further declined since then.” Privately held Ringier does not disclose financial information, Miller said.

Gibeaut said one factor in the decision to close the plant was the expense of pollution-control equipment. He said the division was facing a $1.5-million to $2-million equipment investment and $200,000 in additional annual operating costs to reduce air pollution.

In addition, he said, the company spends about $100,000 a year to ship hazardous wastes out of state, since there are no hazardous-waste landfills available locally. But he noted that environmental protection costs are no higher here than in other major metropolitan areas.

Miller said environmental expenses are “one of the factors” contributing to high costs in Fullerton but are not the major reason for the plant closing. He said labor costs in Fullerton are the highest of any Ringier plant.

The printing industry, Miller added, is going through “a moderate recession.” The Fullerton shutdown is “an isolated incident” and not part of an overall consolidation within Ringier, he said.

The parent company, a major printer in Europe, has dramatically expanded its U.S. operations in recent years and now employs about 5,900 people nationwide.

Gibeaut said Ringier’s acquisition of the Fullerton plant “certainly didn’t help” in keeping the facility open, “but I don’t think it would have changed the end result.”

Commercial printing is a highly competitive business, though Miller said it is no more competitive in Southern California than elsewhere. The Fullerton division, he said, has been unable to attract new business and unable to maintain good profit margins on existing business.