Lexmark closing another cartridge plant July 23, 2008 15:13 by John Sollars

In conjunction with its second-quarter earnings announcement on Tuesday, Lexmark International said it will close another of its inkjet cartridge-manufacturing plants in Mexico.

The move, which will cost the company about $24 million before taxes, will affect about 650 jobs. The company estimates most of the jobs at the Chihuahua, Mexico, plant will be moved to a lower-cost country. The company continues to operate a plant in Juarez, Mexico, where it closed one of two plants last year. It also has a plant in Lapu-Lapu City in the Philippines.

The closure is expected to save the company about $9 million annually beginning in 2009.

The goal is to improve the company's struggling inkjet division, which has dragged on the health of the company since the latter half of 2005 and continues to weigh down earnings, as evidenced in Tuesday's announcement.

Earnings for the second quarter included a 6 percent revenue drop but exceeded analysts' expectations. That revenue drop was linked to the inkjet division, which sold 49 percent fewer printers in the quarter than in the same period a year earlier.