New Solventum layoff details emerge, including 110 Minnesota job cuts

3M spinoff Solventum revealed Thursday that its previously reported restructuring eliminated 800 positions, including 110 in Minnesota, and will result in $120 million in annual savings.

The restructuring also carried a one-time price tag of $120 million for Solventum, Minnesota’s newest large public corporation, according to a presentation for investors Thursday.

“Employees have been encouraged to apply for the 128 open positions available in Minnesota and remote, in alignment with the R&D growth previously communicated in the State of Minnesota,” a Solventum spokesperson said, referring to research and development.

“Solventum spun from 3M with a preexisting team structure,” the spokesperson said. “Since then, the number of employees in Minnesota has continued — and will continue — to grow. The previously announced restructuring will allow us to direct our strategic investments to fuel additional growth."

The restructuring came after Solventum broke off from manufacturing conglomerate 3M on April 1, 2024, taking on $8 billion in debt and facing sliding profits. Last month, it announced it was selling its purification business to Thermo Fisher Scientific for $4.1 billion in cash. It also said quarterly adjusted profits fell more than $100 million compared to the performance of the same four divisions when they were a part of 3M a year prior.

In December, Solventum launched a round of layoffs via a video message to its employees. The company said on Thursday that 85% of the company’s leadership team is new, and there’s a “new bar of excellence set throughout the organization.” Solventum has approximately 22,000 employees, with roughly 11,000 employees in the United States, according to its 2024 fiscal report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The restructuring resulted in a “new decentralized and aligned structure” and “supports the culture of increased autonomy, speed and accountability,” the company said in its presentation at an investor day event in New York City.

The spokesperson said the company did not make the restructuring decisions as part of a cost-cutting exercise. “In fact, we will have more employees and greater investments in our business than at the time of our spin,” the spokesperson said.

The company anticipates creating as many as 75 new positions available to employees in Minnesota and remotely as a result of a reinvestment, the spokesperson said.

The company said in the presentation it has restructured corporate R&D, medical affairs and corporate marketing to align with the company’s businesses. It has also realigned thousands of roles to drive growth, it said.

Solventum announced its long-term plan to grow the company and satisfy investors on Thursday. CEO Bryan Hanson said the company has established and communicated its mission, decentralized its structure, overhauled its talent and raised the bar of excellence since the spinoff.

The company said it will stop developing products in its pipeline that don’t have the opportunity to drive growth. It will focus on negative pressure wound therapy, intravenous-fluid site management, sterilization assurance, revenue cycle management and core restoratives as growth drivers.

“We have 70 years — 70 years — of innovation, with close to 7,000 patents," Hanson said. “We may have lost our way recently, but we have brands in the marketplace today because of the capabilities that we have in this organization that are second to none, that are clinically preferred.”

The company is aiming to accelerate organic sales growth to between 4% and 5% in 2028, up from a range of 1% to 2% for fiscal year 2025. Analyst Rick Wise of Stifel said he expects the new Solventum team to “work very, very hard to outperform these financial targets over the next three years.”

“Bryan and his senior leadership group are building a world-class team at Solventum with deep, deep experience and a strong record of accomplishment over decades,” Wise said.

Wise said cutting positions is painful for underperforming companies looking for solid footing.

“I think that the Solventum team is taking decisions that were not perhaps as focused on under the 3M umbrella,” Wise said.

After the spinoff, the company, Hanson said, “was more entangled than I expected, more complex, and we had more debt.”

“So where are we today?“ Hanson said to investors. “Well, you don’t complain about a complex situation: You fix it.”