Opus eliminates jobs at unprofitable UK unit

The company will eliminate 75 of its 360 UK-based positions, according to a statement to the NZX today. The UK unit had a pretax loss of $5.4 million in 2008.

"We have taken this action after putting significant effort over a number of months into improving revenue generation and diversification of revenue sources in a declining and very tough market," said managing director Kevin Thompson.

The jobs cuts will help match workers to the available workload "to address the losses being incurred."

The shares rose 5% to $1.25 on the NZX and have declined about 11% in the past month while the NZX 50 fell about 2%.

The UK operations were a black spot for Opus, which lifted group net profit by 23% to $3.3 million last year with revenue climbing 25% to $75 million. Revenue beat its prospectus forecast by 18% and profit was 11% ahead.

By Jonathan Underhill

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