Cost cutting pushes more staff out the door at CHH

Peter Springford

More staff have been made redundant at Carter Holt Harvey this week in the wake of Graeme Hart's takeover.

CHH chief executive Peter Springford said fewer than 50 staff at the head office and across CHH's various business divisions, had been made redundant.

Some others - already redundant - have been leaving the company in the lead-up to Christmas.

The redundancies come as Hart has pushed to cut costs at the business, which he took control of in September after acquiring International Paper's 51 per cent stake as part of a $3.3 billion takeover bid.

Since then, 90 jobs have been cut from head office and about 115 jobs have been lost at the Rainbow Mountain sawmill near Rotorua.

Springford said not all job losses were driven by Hart.

"Some of them were already in play and were planned before Graeme and his team arrived," he said.

"The forestry industry is quite challenged at the moment with pricing and FX [foreign exchange] and there's ongoing restructuring."

Asked about his own future at CHH, Springford said: "That's between me and the board.

"Certainly while we're a listed company a CEO is required."

Separately, Springford said the company was watching out for implications of the prosecution of Australian packaging manufacturer Visy Industries for colluding to fix prices with fellow packaging-maker Amcor.

Analysts said this week that bad press from the prosecution by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission could boost CHH's share of the A$2 billion market from 5 per cent to 25 per cent.

Hart's Rank Group said it was extending its takeover bid for CHH - which was due to end yesterday - by three weeks to January 13.

Rank controls 85.5 per cent of the company - short of the 90 per cent needed to compulsorily acquire the outstanding shares.