A year of transition sees Bodycote shed over 2000 jobs

Chief executive Stephen Harris said the company's markets had been very challenging with sharply lower volumes, the impact of which was addressed by significant cost reductions. "Many of our automotive and general industrial markets have already started to recover but we do not expect the aerospace, defence and energy markets to strengthen until later in 2010. The pace of recovery remains uncertain and potentially uneven. We anticipate that full recovery in demand may take several years," he warned. The company said that difficulties encountered by most of the businesses were clearly reflected in the 2009 results. Revenue declined by 21.1% to £435.4 million. To compensate for the loss of business, employee numbers had been reduced by a similar proportion and 25 of the original 203 operating sites have been closed. Harris was appointed as Bodycote's new chief executive at the start of 2009 and in his first year had concentrated on: focusing the business on its core technologies and key markets; addressed a sharp reduction in demand by reducing costs; and carried out an evaluation of management strength which had resulted in a number of new appointments. Nevertheless, in the absence of any significant trading upturn, it was still too early to see the full impact of these initiatives, Bodycote said. The restructuring programme has involved the closure of 25 facilities in total, the permanent decommissioning of some inefficient process lines and mothballing of others at a number of the remaining plants, together with the matching of headcount to demand throughout the organisation. The benefit has been a cost reduction of £30.4 million in 2009 . The number of employees has been reduced by 29% since the peak in July 2008, to a total of 5,512.