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Finnish engineer Wärtsilä has moved to thwart the prospect of a renewed takeover bid by London-based giant Rolls-Royce with a restructure that it says will save €60 million (£49.5 million) a year.
Rumours of an £8 billion tilt for Wärtsilä have circled the City since it was announced earlier this month that initial friendly talks had collapsed.
Rolls-Royce, world-renowned for its aircraft engines, wants to strengthen its marine engineering work, like designing ships — a hallmark of Wärtsilä.
A spokesman for Wärtsilä said that the restructuring, which will cost 1000 jobs, would ensure that the group’s cost structure was “more competitive”. He added that “any type of takeover would not look as good as perhaps earlier”.
About one-fifth of the redundancies will fall in Finland, but the UK could see some job losses.
Managers in nearly 70 countries are being asked to review their staff levels.
Wärtsilä is best-known in Britain for its 2012 purchase of Hamworthy, a 100-year-old marine and oil and gas group based on Dorset’s south coast in Poole.
Other operations scattered across the country include a research and development centre just outside of London in Slough.
Wärtsilä also announced today that 2013 sales fell 1% to €4.65 billion, with some of the blame placed on the still volatile global economy.
