ERF slashes Cheshire workforce by half
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• by Cliff Caswell
British truck manufacturer ERF is shedding half the workforce at its Cheshire plant in a move to return to profit. Some 370 of the 750-strong workforce are to go as part of a major restructuring package.
The firm's German parent company MAN confirmed that it plans to maintain ERE as a sales and marketing subsidiary alongside MAN Truck and Bus UK.
An ERF spokesman says: "Employees have been told that over the next six months truck assembly at the company's plant at Middlewich will switch to ERF products based more heavily on MAN technology and for the UK market only."
This could signal the end of the ERE traditional composite cab in favour of the ECS range fitted with the steel MAN F2000 cab. Workers will be offered voluntary redundancy where possible, but the company has said it wants to retain "a broad range of experience and skills".
The news comes just weeks after the suspension of ERE chief executive John Bryant, chief finance officer Klaus Wagner and financial controller Steve Ellis as alleged financial irregularities in the company were probed.
Nobody at BDO Stoy Hayward, the accountancy firm carrying out the investigation, was available for comment as CornmercialMotorwent to press.
ERE spokesman Trevor Longcroft is also unable to confirm rumours that that the three members of staff suspended at the end of August had now left the company: "There is no word as of yet on the investigation, which is still ongoing. There has been no change in the situation, and it is very much business as usual."