Job cuts for Great Southern - Poor sales drive strategic review
By Kate Kachor Mon 14 Jul 2008
Great Southern expects staff cuts to its national sales and marketing teams as part of its strategic review.
Great Southern will undertake a review of its company costs next week, with job losses expected to be felt across the agribusiness firm.
The listed firm hinted at possible restructure earlier this month following poor sales figures in its quarterly managed investment scheme sales (MIS) report.
For the period ending 30 June, the firm recorded about $315 million in sales, a figure that represents a decrease in total sales from last year of about 24 per cent, or a six per cent decline on a like-for-like basis.
As a result, the firm will undertake a strategic review of its costs, including cutting staff numbers next week, Great Southern communications manager David Ikin confirmed to InvestorDaily.
"We did have what we regard as a very disappointing result and also in the announcement we told the market we were looking at the company's costs right across the board and regrettably this does involve some redundancies across our sales and marketing departments," Ikin said.
"Staffing is just one of the things that we're looking at as a way to reduce costs for the company so it doesn't start and finish with job cuts, but there will unfortunately be some positions that will be no longer required. That process is happening this week and does involve our sales offices around Australia."
All staff in the company have been made aware of staff losses, with individuals whose positions may be impacted being spoken to this week, Ikin said.
"So it's not a secret within Great Southern that this process is going on," he said.
"It's much more than just reactive to the poor sales and the markets. It's no secret that we're in a very uncertain time with the [MIS] test case for non-forestry and generally we're carrying out a strategic review of the company."
Ikin would not speculate on how many jobs would be lost under the review.
Great Southern expect to finalise its strategic review in about seven weeks.
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