Profits up but GEA plans further job losses

GERMANY: The GEA Group reports sales up 8.7% in the first quarter of this year but continued downsizing will see around 1,450 redundancies.

According to preliminary figures, first quarter order intake for the Düsseldorf-based mechanical engineering group amounted to approximately €1,100m, up around 8.7% on last year. Mainly due to currency translation effects, consolidated revenue climbed more than 5% to roughly €1,000m.

However, the number of redundancies announced last year under its Fit for 2020 restructuring plans has risen to 1,450.

Around 1,000 redundancies were originally planned under its Fit for 2020 initiative. These plans were expected to save at least EUR100m per year by 2017 by forming two business areas – Equipment and Solutions – with sales and services being bundled into one organisation.

Further cuts will increase savings to €125m per year, mainly due to the higher level of planned downsizing that now foresees a reduction of around 1,450 full-time employees.

“Based on an in-depth analysis of the current structure of GEA Group as a whole, we have designed the future target organisation in line with the blueprint concept presented in August 2014 and identified further potential savings over the past months,” reported GEA Group CEO Jürg Oleas.

“The new group structure with fewer levels of hierarchy and less complexity is to be implemented by the end of 2016 so that we will generate minimum savings of €125m per year as of the fiscal year 2017,” he added.

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