Marconi moving out of manufacture with $4bn deal

The largest UK telecoms manufacturer has sold five factories; two in the UK and others in Texas, Germany and Italy, for $390m to outsourcing specialist Jabil Circuits. Marconi announced its intention to dispose of the factories in October. The 2900 staff, 1200 of whom are UK-based, will be taken on by the Detroit-based outsourcer with no involuntary redundancies, the companies said.

The three-year contract for design and manufacture of circuit boards and systems will be worth over $4bn.

Marconi also said last October that it would concentrate on product development and implementation and move out of manufacture. It is due to dispose of part of its optical fibre manufacturing capacity, Fibreway in Ireland, in the first half of this year.

Jabil Circuits is a 30-year old, $3.5bn circuit board specialist based in Detroit with factories around the world.