Invensys cuts jobs and plans new acquisitions
15 Jan 2000
Invensys, the control systems giant formed from the union of BTR and Siebe, is to cut 5000 jobs from its payroll over the next year, bringing the total job losses since the merger to 11,000. The move will help it save £50million per year above target.
Invensys is a huge company, comprising 500 subsidiary businesses and employing over 120,000 people. The company has not said how it intends to carry out the planned job cuts, although sales of some subsidiaries, including its automotive division, paper technology and the environmental business, are up for sale.
According to chairman Lord Marshall, the merger has already begun to pay off. Group sales rose over 10 per cent in the year to April, reaching £6.6billion, while cash flow improved in the second half of the year. `We can see the first tangible evidence of cost savings and synergies identified during the merger process,' he said.
The company has also started to bolster the merger through acquisitions, buying Massachusetts-based enterprise resource planning software house Marcam Solutions for some $60million. The company intends to combine Marcam's products with its Wonderware Factory-Suite software package.
