Seddon shake-up
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SEDDON ATKINSON's managing director is returning to the United States as part of a drastic restructure pending the company's sale by its parent company, International Harvester.
The restructure follows the provision of £2.8m by a consortium of British banks to tide it over its present period of uncertainty, and means that Seddon can continue with its programme of product developments.
Managing director Bob Johnson has returned to lH headquarters at Chicago, after three years with Seddon, and has been replaced by a Yorkshireman, former finance director Gerry Woodhead. Mr Woodhead has been at Seddon since 1980, and was previously at IH's European headquarters in Brussels, Peter Whitaker, formerly marketing manager, is now sales and marketing director. He was previously with Ford and Scammell Trailers, and joined Seddon in 1980.
While the new management team is being optimistic and Mr Woodhead predicts that Seddon will continue in "an even stronger position", they are faced with the immediate prospect of declaring "some" redundancies among the 1,000 employees at Seddon's Oldham headquarters.
No figure is being put on this latest job cut, which follows a 45 per cent cut two years ago when the company's Walton le Dale plant was closed in the depths of the present recession.
Much of Seddon's current difficulty has been caused by the poor financial performance of IH, and last week Mr Whitaker said that figures for the first four months of the company's financial year show a 23 per cent sales increase over the previous year.
Mr Whitaker also said then that two international and one United Kingdom company are interested in buying Seddon, but declined to be more specific.
An independent report published this week by ICC Business Ratios, cataloguing the financial disarray in the commercial vehicle manufacturing industry, adds fuel to rumours about one of Seddon's potential suitors.
It says that General Motors' British commercial vehicle manufacturing capacity would receive a "powerful boost" into the "big league" represented by market leaders Ford and Leyland if it bought Seddon. The report shows that 60 per cent of manufacturers — bodybuilders were a successful exception — were trading at a loss by the end of 1981, and adds, somewhat prophetically in view of the simultaneous Seddon announcement: "Only the munificence of the banks and the generosity of parent companies, combined with drastic pruning, enabled the industry to survive in any coherent form." IH has still to find a buyer for its one third shareholding in Daf Trucks.
• Figures published by the Society of Motor Manufactuers and Traders show Seddon winning a 4.9 per cent (1982: 4.4 per cent) share of truck and artic sales in January and February. Total sales in the sector were 7,423 (1982: 6,823). Importers sold 32.4 per cent last month (1982: 34.2 per cent). Sales of all commercials last month were 21,438 (1982: 16,125).