[guard-of-terra]

I wonder how much it costs to build a new plant in another country and shut down and old one while transferring operations, and I would probably bet some money that they actually lost money on that.

3 years of operations probably did not offset costs.

[blumentopf]

They received subsidies from Romania and the EU for building the plant in Cluj that they'll likely have to return if they close down the fab early.

That's why they agreed to pay millions for closing down the plant in Bochum, because they had received subsidies for building that plant in the 1990s and the German state of Nordrhein-Westfalen claimed they didn't fulfil the conditions under which the subsidies were granted.

Here's a PDF with some details (page 12): http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/emcc/erm/templates/displaydoc...

Quote: "Nokia received German state subsidies for its production in Bochum and will be exempted from the real estate tax in Romania, while the infrastructure for its new plant in Cluj was subsidised by Romanian and EU funds."

Nokia would really hold the world record in shortsighted management if HP hadn't ousted them in that discipline this summer.