Overview
- Varta announced on Tuesday that it will close its specialised Micro Production unit in Nördlingen after production runs only through the existing contract that ends at the end of October 2026, leaving about 350 production, administration and supplier-linked roles at risk.
- Multiple outlets report the anchor customer is Apple and that future orders will be sourced from a Chinese supplier, but Varta has not officially named the customer.
- Company executives say the Nördlingen site is highly specialised for CoinPower button cells and cannot be repurposed quickly, which makes short-term alternatives to closure infeasible.
- Varta says it will negotiate with the works council on socially acceptable measures, seek transfers to other sites where possible, and keep other business units such as V4Smart operating largely unchanged.
- The shutdown highlights a wider problem: heavy reliance on a single large contract after major public and private investment created concentration risk for Varta, which has been in a formal restructuring process since July 2024 and now faces regional economic and political fallout.