Unigate to shed 2000 staff

By WILLIAM KAY
Updated: 18:00 EST, 27 March 2000

Unigate, which is in the middle of a tug-of-war with Dairy Crest and Robert Wiseman Dairies over its dairy operations, is to close or sell seven meat and yoghurt factories, with at least 2000 jobs lost, in an effort to struggle out of its long-running profits rut.

Chief executive Sir Ross Buckland also said profits for the year ending this Saturday would be not less than £123 million, compared with last year's £141.5 million.

Of that £123 million, the soon-to-go dairy businesses will have contributed £42 million.

But the closures would cost £74 million and would not make a significant impact on profits until the year beginning in April next year.

After allowing for those costs, pre-tax profits for the current year would be slashed to £33.9 million and no allowance has been made for exiting the dairy activities.

That will leave Unigate as a convenience foods group with the Wincanton lorries business.

Buckland said: 'A great deal of progress has been made on integrating the UNIQfoods, Terranova and Marie acquisitions to create a strong platform for the future development of the group's convenience foods operations.'

Another £11.2 million is to be spent on cutting costs at UNIQfoods and Marie, to save £7 million a year. Last week Wiseman stepped in with a rival £225 million cash offer to the planned Dairy Crest deal.