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Friday, January 22, 1999 Published at 19:38 GMT
Business: The Company File
Lego to cut 1,000 jobs
Lego, the Danish toymaker, famous for its plastic building bricks, is to shed 10% of its workforce next year in an attempt to return to profitability.
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| June Kelly: "Lego are fighting back" (BBC Six O'Clock News) |
Profits plunged for the privately owned company to £6m (62m Danish kroner) in 1997 compared with £47m (470m Dkr) in l996. Net sales were flat at £740m (Dkr 7.6bn).
![[ image: Chief Executive Kjeld Kristiansen is one of the family owners]](/olmedia/255000/images/_259803_kristiansen_lego_ceo150.jpg) |
| Chief Executive Kjeld Kristiansen is one of the family owners |
Although 1998 results won't be officially published until April, a spokesman acknowledged on Monday that they would be in the red.
The job cuts will mainly affect people in the sales, marketing and finance departments.
Just under half of Lego's 10,000 employees are based in Denmark.
Never made a loss
Lego, privately owned by the Kristiansen family, has not made a loss since it was founded.
It has only recently launched a computer-based Lego system, and it also has theme parks (one in Windsor in the UK) and clothing.
The company was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kristiansen, a carpenter who had a sideline in wooden toys.
The world-famous plastic studded building blocks were invented in 1958, after a decade of developing a toy system of "Automatic Binding Bricks".
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The Company File Contents
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Relevant Stories 18 Jan 99 | The Company File Red brick for Lego |
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