Spirax-Sarco Engineering has issued an upbeat trading assessment. The company employs about 1,000 people in Cheltenham and is a world leader in steam pumps used in a range of industries and applications. At the start of last year, the firm announced that it was laying off around 300 staff, taking its global workforce down to 4,200. The firm also announced that it was planning to close its final-salary pension scheme, in a bid to cut costs.
However, in a statement to the Stock Market earlier this month, the company said that trading conditions had improved, with the result that its 2009 sales were 3% higher than the 2008 figure. The statement added: “Trading margins in the second half of the year benefitted from lower material costs and management action to reduce operating costs, in addition to the usual positive seasonal second-half bias from slightly higher sales volume.
“In 2010, we expect a small currency headwind and also plan to re-invest some of the cost savings in stepping up our investment in product development, expanding our market penetration and improving operating efficiency.”