PLANO, Texas -- The maker of Dr Pepper added to staff cutbacks at its Plano headquarters this week, as the company moved to eliminate some of the 470 jobs it plans to shed corporate-wide by yearend, reported The Dallas Morning News.
Since we announced the restructuring program on Oct. 10, we have been speaking one-on-one with the employees affected by the announcement, Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages, which also makes 7UP and other soft drinks, said Friday. Some of those conversations are occurring today, but these are private conversations with [image-nocss] our employees and we cannot comment further, the company said, according to the report.
Such conversations have been going on all week, according to someone who works at the company and asked not to be named, said the newspaper.
Cadbury Schweppes PLC, its London-based parent, had sought a buyer for its beverage operation, but those plans fizzled thanks to a tight credit market, fueled in part by the subprime mortgage meltdown, the Morning News said.
That led to the announcement last week that the soft drink arm would become a new, publicly traded company, perhaps by the middle of next year. Plans for the job cutbacks were announced then, beginning with a restructuring of top management, said the report.
Larry Young, the new CEO of the beverage unit, said most of the cuts would come from the corporate side, which puts the executive-laden Plano headquarters in the cross hairs, the report added.
Most of the unit's corporate staff is in Plano, with a smaller contingent in Rye Brook, N.Y. The New York office handles corporate functions for noncarbonated products such as Motts juices and Snapple teas.
As of March, about 1,260 of Americas Beverages' 19,000 employees worked in Plano, the report said. Most of them would be classified as corporate or salaried. The company declined to reveal the number of workers in Rye Brook.
It also declined to discuss the severance packages, the Morning News said, but one veteran terminated Friday told the paper that management characterized the packages as competitive with the industry.
Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages, which will be renamed during the spinoff, is facing higher materials costs, especially for aluminum, as well as a shrinking market for carbonated soft drinks, the report said. Young said a leaner operation would make the company more competitive.
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