COATS, the world's largest supplier of industrial sewing thread, yesterday agreed to a takeover worth (pounds) 414m that will see the former industrial giant delist from the stock market - but union officials fear the new owners will axe more than half the company's Scottish staff.
The threadmaker, which was once one of the UK's largest firms and a sizeable Scottish employer, said it would recommend to shareholders the offer of 58.5p per share, including a special dividend of 2.5p, from a consortium of investors led by corporate raider Sir Ron Brierley and his investment company, Guinness Peat Group.
A spokesman for the consortium, Avenue Acquisitions, yesterday said: ''Guinness Peat has had someone on the Coats board for several years now and the intention is to continue the strategy of concentrating on the threads business.
''Nothing will change in the sense of strategy, and to my knowledge there are no redundancies planned.''
Coats, which recently sold
its loss-making Jaeger and Viyella fashion brands to focus on its mainstay threads business, now supports about 110 of the 12,000 jobs it once spawned in Scotland, at a factory at Newton Mearns, south of Glasgow.
Ian King, a GMB organiser for Scotland's clothing and textile industry, said: ''We're concerned the company will move the production operation down south, with the loss of about 60 jobs here.
''We'll be seeking an urgent meeting with the new owners, should the sale go ahead. Our concern is job security for the workers, particularly given Coats' long history in Scotland.''
The company, which was started by James Coats in Paisley in 1826, last year closed its factory in Kilmarnock, with the loss of 150 jobs.
The offer from Avenue, which is subject to shareholder approval, is at a 31% premium to the closing price of Coats shares on February 12 - the day before the company said it had received what was then a hostile approach.
Rises since then have taken shares from 44.75p to 57.25p last night, valuing the company at around (pounds) 407m.
Coats also fits the bill well as an underperforming target for Brierley's Guinness Peat, which has built its name on aggressively buying stakes in underperforming companies and selling out at a premium.
Glasgow engineering group Vickers, Mount Charlotte Hotels (now Thistle Hotels) and Australia's Carlton & United Breweries have been among Brierley's more daring targets.
Guinness Peat, which has built up a 25.3% stake over the past couple of years, also owns sizeable stakes in cashmere group Dawson International and has other interests ranging from car retailers to watchmaker Time Products.
Coats said it would now publish its results for 2002 today, having originally scheduled them for March 26.
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