Belgian Daf restructure
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BELGIAN finance has been pumped into Daf Trucks' cab and axlebuilding subsidiary to back up the company's plans to revamp its entire range before the end of the eighties.
An investment company, Sidinvest, has taken a BFr500m (£6.2m) stake in Daf's Belgian subsidiary, which manufactures most of its cabs and axles at Westerlo, in Belgium, following a BFr2m (£230,000) increase in the company's risk capital.
This is in addition to the £135m investment programme for Daf, which includes £61m being spent on rationalising the production techniques and other associated work at Westerlo. Investment in developing cabs, which looks likely to be conducted jointly with Spanishbased Enasa (likely future owner of Seddon Atkinson), is separate from the figure for Westerlo, but could be expected to cost both companies around E30m.
In the meantime, Daf president Aart van der Padt has reported an estimated loss of between £5.7m to £6.8m for last year. He predicted that the company could become profitable again this year.