Fire: reshuffle at its owner DMG World Media
DMG World Media magazine staff have been threatened with job cuts as a result of major restructuring.
The company-wide shake-up is expected to result in 10 redundancies, the sale of several titles and the departure of DMG chairman Keith Harris. It will also involve a move to new offices, close to the company’s current headquarters in Redhill, Surrey.
DMG publishes 65 magazines, yearbooks and market reports and has a presence in the electrical, transport, marine and tobacco industries. The company has 30 exhibitions and conferences worldwide.
Chief executive Ian Stokes said DMG had spent the past two years re-establishing itself as a leading exhibition and event company with a strong publishing support platform.
He said: “We are on the verge of making some very significant and exciting announcements that will result in some structural changes. I can’t say anything other than that. As a result of the developments, it has been necessary to restructure certain areas of the business and that has resulted in us having to issue a limited number of at risk notices to staff.”
He added: “We are now at the stage where we are launching into China, Korea, the US, Vietnam, Malaysia, North Africa and India and in order to do that we have got to the final part of restructuring our portfolio. These launches will result in an exciting opportunity for the business to expand. Should we be facing any redundancies in the immediate time scale, they will be at an absolute minimum.”
DMG’s titles include Fire, International Broadcast Engineer, Glass, Glass International, World Tobacco and the highly profitable Oils & Fats International.
It is understood Foundry Trade Journal, Diecasting World and Castings Buyer are to be sold to the Institute of Cast Metals Engineers. FTJ will merge with the institute’s Foundryman title, creating one monthly publication.
Separately, Safety At Sea International and Dredging & Port Construction are expecting to be sold to Fairplay, part of Lloyd’s Register.
The editorial and sales teams across DMG’s Steel Times International and Aluminium International Today are to merge. And due to market conditions and “no significant sign of recovery on the horizon”, DMG said Furnaces International will be merged into STI and AIT. It will appear from February as a quarterly supplement.
In addition, the Glass portfolio will merge with the electrical sector. The company is also understood to have negotiated a release from its long-term contract with Queensway House from October 2005.
By Ruth Addicott
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