Kimberly-Clark to cut workforce by 12-13 percent, shut facilities

(Reuters) - Kleenex and Huggies maker Kimberly-Clark Corp said on Tuesday it expects to eliminate 5,000-5,500 jobs, or 12-13 percent of its workforce, as part of its global restructuring program.

The company said it expects to close or sell about ten manufacturing facilities and would exit or divest some lower-margin businesses.

The restructuring is expected to broadly impact all the business segments of the company, it said.

The cost-savings program, which will begin in the current quarter, is expected to be completed in two years and the company sees incurring related pretax charges of $1.7 billion to $1.9 billion over that period.

Kimberly-Clark said the program would generate annual pretax cost savings of $500 to $550 million by the end of 2021.

It expects cash costs for the restructuring, mainly related to workforce reductions, to be between $900 million to $1 billion.

The company on Tuesday also reported a near 1 percent rise in fourth-quarter net sales to $4.6 billion, compared with a year earlier.

Kimberly-Clark said it expects net sales in 2018 to improve by 1 percent to 2 percent.

"Although we expect market conditions will remain challenging in the near-term, we plan to deliver better results in 2018 while we begin to implement our new restructuring", Chief Executive Thomas Falk said in a statement.

Shares of the company, which also raised its quarterly dividend by 3.1 percent, were marginally up at $117.24 in early trading.

(Reporting by Sangameswaran S in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)