American company Visteon Electronics, the successor of Johnson Controls in the industrial zone Bunardzik, at the end of 2016, after exactly eight years, shut down its production in Macedonia. The decision to leave was announced by the corporation back in mid-2015. They cited the excess of production facilities on European soil as the reason for closing of their factory.
In Macedonia, Visteon compiled components for car instrument cluster, a production process they took over from Johnson Controls, the first foreign investment in Bunardzik that started its operations in December 2007.
Globally, Visteon Electronics in 2014, acquired part of the production of Johnson Controls and, as part of this transaction, the Skopje factory passed into the hands of Visteon.
Less than two years later, Visteon left, and was replaced by a third American company, Delphi, which also works in the automotive industry.
Although Delphi will take over the building and storage facility of Visteon in Bunardzik, its investment represents an entirely different factory.
Delphi will not be obliged to keep the previous employees and its investment in Macedonia will not be a continuation of the business started by Johnson Controls, which was extended by Visteon. The new company will produce parts for the automotive technology.
In its promotional materials, the ruling VMRO-DPMNE party argued that Visteon (former Johnson Controls, located in the Technological Industrial Development Zone Skopje 1) invested 30 million euros in the factory in Bunardzik, but official data and independent analysis put the actual amount of the investment slightly lower.
The predecessor of Visteon Electronics, Johnson Controls, in June 2007, committed to invest approximately 26.5 million euros.
The the company had no non-current assets for 2015 because it was withdrawing from Macedonia. However, in 2012, when the factory in full swing, their non-current assets were estimated at 15 million euros.
There is a slight discrepancy between the reported data on the number of employees hired by the company.
According to news reports, the company had planned to employ 300 people by 2013, while in VMRO-DPMNE’s Accountability Report from 2016, it states that Visteon employed 240 people, while their balance sheet for 2015 revealed that they had hired 227 employees. In 2016, this figure was reduced to 33 employees.
This is the only foreign investment for which the Commission for Protection of Competition had published the exact amount of state aid granted. In 2007, the Commission announced that the state will help the company with 8.88 million euros which is 33.1% of the value of the foreign investment.
It was precisely the Government’s state aid that instigated the Commission for Protection of Competition to initiate legal action against Visteon in 2015. Namely, the foreign investor was exempt from paying personal income tax on two grounds. The first exemption was on the grounds of a decision of the Commission for Protection of Competition, while the second was on the grounds of the Law on Technological Industrial Development Zones, which, according to the Commission for Protection of Competition, was "incompatible with the law."
Тhe Commission informed BIRN that they requested from the Agency for Foreign Investments and Export Promotion to revoke the amount of granted financial assistance plus interest. The Agency explained that they "acted" on the decision of the Commission, and neither of them has revealed what the exact amount of assistance is.
"Johnson Controls" and then" Visteon" , the American company in the automotive sector, since 2007 had been producing in Macedonia electronic components and motherboards for the automotive industry.
The owner of Macedonian Visteon is Vihi LLC, which is registered as a subsidiary of Visteon Corporation. Interestingly, Vihi LLC is registered in one of the most famous offshore buildings in the world, which is located in the US state of Delaware, also a popular tax haven.
The building has two floors called the Corporation Trust Centre, where approximately 285,000 companies are registered.