SIG to shut six factories

Building materials supplier SIG is to shut half of its 12 factories making interiors products with the loss of a further 300 jobs.

The change is on top 980 redundancies already made at the firm in the last six months, and came as it slumped to a pre-tax loss of £9.2m in the first six months of 2009, including a £18m charge for the restructuring of the business.

The firm said the factory closures would result in an annual saving of £10.3m to the business at the expense of further one-off restructuring costs of approximately £23m. In total it expects to spend £47m restructuring the company and will have ultimately shut 141 branches with the loss of 2,500 jobs.

The loss compares to a profit in the same period the year before of £55.7m, and was achieved on revenues of £1.35bn, down 10% on the same period last year. The fall in sales would have been far worse were it not for currency fluctuations and the impact of acquisitions, with like for like sales down 17.5%

In addition its core UK and Ireland markets were hit hardest of all, down 21.5% to £667m, following what the chair, Les Tench, described as “exceptionally challenging” conditions.

He said: “Construction activity in the UK and Ireland was substantially lower than the same period in 2008, resulting in steeply lower volumes and gross margin pressures. The new build housing segment has shown some modest signs of stabilising at a very low absolute level, while discretionary residential spending has continued to fall.”