Mead Unit to Close 2 Plants, Shift Operations

Mead Corp. announced plans to close its Mead Consumer & Office Products plants in Kalamazoo, Mich., and Indianapolis and shift work to other facilities. After the closings, the Mead division will operate 10 manufacturing plants and nine distribution centers in North America. Closing the Kalamazoo plant will affect 180 employees. Mead said it will take a pretax charge of up to $6 million against 2000 earnings to cover severance expenses and costs of transferring equipment. The Dayton, Ohio-based company also announced plans to transfer operations from its Indianapolis plant to Dayton and Sidney, N.Y. The Indianapolis plant has about 150 full-time employees. Mead’s stock closed up 13 cents at $27.38 on the NYSE.