28 May 1998: North-west England“s glass giant Pilkington Plc is making good progress in both its efficiency drive and attempts to bring uniformity to the company, Chief Executive Paolo Scaroni told t…
28 May 1998: North-west England“s glass giant Pilkington Plc is making good progress in both its efficiency drive and attempts to bring uniformity to the company, Chief Executive Paolo Scaroni told the press recently. Scaroni, 47, said these two objectives were a priority and would bring the company welcome benefits in its results next year. “The point is that we have never been able to squeeze out of this very strong marketing position the kind of profit we have been aiming at and the last 12 months of my work has been very much focused on working on the cost base.” Pilkington, which supplies a quarter of the world“s UK 4 billion automotive glazing market and owns around 12% of the world“s float glass capacity, announced in October of last year that it intended to cut costs by UK190 million by 1999. It said 6,000 building products, automotive, office and float line staff were to be made redundant and more than 60 locations in Europe, particularly downstream operations such as double-glazing, would be closed over the next eighteen months. Scaroni would not detail the extent of the cost savings so far, as the company is due to issue its annual results in the near future. The company reported a turnover of UK 2.8 billion in 1997, down 9% from the previous year“s figure of UK 3.1 billion. Profit before exceptionals and tax also declined to UK 132 million from UK 212 million.