Electrical equipment maker Havells India today said it has completed a business restructuring for its acquired brand Sylvania, closing down three plants and cutting 1,400 jobs.
The company reported a consolidated profit before tax for the quarter ended September 30 at Rs 96 crore as against a loss of Rs 2.6 crore in the year ago period on the back of robust performance by the business from Sylvania, which it had acquired in 2007.
"We started our restructuring programme (for Sylvania) in April last year and completed it last month. As part of the programme, we closed down three loss making plants and reduced the manpower from 3,800 to 2,400," Havells India Joint Managing Director Anil Gupta told reporters here.
He said the three plants that were closed down were in the UK, Brazil and Costa Rica. After closing the plants, Sylvania currently has seven plants across the world now.
"Our main focus is to bring back profitability, though our aim is to have a revenue of around 500 million euros," he said without giving a timeframe.
The subsidiary for the first time since its acquisition sprung back to black with a net profit of euro 1.3 million (Rs 8.1 crore) in Q2 FY11 from a loss of euro 10.2 million (Rs 71 crore in the same period a year ago.
Sylvania's revenue during the quarter stood at euro 118 million (Rs 730 crore), as against euro 105 million (Rs 652 crore) in the year ago period.
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Havells India consolidated revenue increased 6 per cent during the quarter at Rs 1,401 crore.
Gupta said a management restructuring of Sylvania has also been completed and has also relocated its global headquarter from Frankfurt to London as it looks to enhance business in Europe.
"We have also done restructuring at the management level as well..We had to revamp the entire team and shifted our global headquarter from Germany to UK," he said, adding the firm spent around Rs 200 crore on restructuring.