The OEM’s UK subsidiary reported growth despite job cuts at its Cumbernauld plant in April.
Staff outside OKI’s site in Cumbernauld, Scotland
Business7 reported on the OEM’s “strong revenue and profit growth” despite job cuts in April at its Cumbernauld plant in the UK, with 182 staff lost as part of “a wider global restructuring”.
The subsidiary, which appointed a new Managing Director this week, saw revenues at the Cumbernauld base rise by 19 percent to £82.2 million ($133.1 million/€98.4 million) and pre-tax profits rise by 30 percent to £2.95 million ($4.77 million/€3.53 million). The results come after the job cuts, which took the staff down to 175 from a maximum of 500 in previous years, and the company had been “one of the largest employers in the Cumbernauld and Kilsyth region”.
The cuts came as a result of OKI’s announcement in September 2012 that it “expected to report a significant loss” after “discovering financial irregularities” at is Spanish subsidiary OKI Systems Iberica, with a potential loss there of ¥8 billion ($79.1 million/€58.5 million), with shares falling 40 percent as a consequence.
OKI UK’s filings at Companies House for this financial year however stated that its positive results “show a continued drive to control locally the operating expenditure” at Cumbernauld, with the UK company “manag[ing] the internal elements of the business well and [meeting] their budgetary commitments”. The UK subsidiary also announced it would “no longer be involved” in manufacturing printers of MFPs in the UK, and will focus on “manufacturing consumables products” for the devices instead.
Losses for the year for OKI Europe meanwhile reached £78 million ($126.3 million/€93.4 million), due largely to the “improper accounting” in Spain, with the mistakes “a result of selling product volume exceeding [the] sales capability of some of the distributors”, according to an internal report.