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Himachal Futuristic group to lay off 400 employees

Telecom equipment maker Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd plans to lay off 400 employees from its group companies because of poor market conditions, a senior official said on Friday.

It will lay off 100 of 130 employees in its software services joint venture with Australian media tycoon Kerry Packer's Consolidated Press Holdings, HFCL's chairman Mahendra Nahata told Reuters.

Another 300 staffers in the telecom services business of HFCL and other group companies will also be asked to go, he said.

"Overall our staff strength of over 2,200 people will come down to around 1,800, and the group as a whole will save Rs 200 million a year," he said.

Packer's holding company owns 49 per cent of the software joint venture, Consolidated Futuristic Solutions Ltd or Cofuture for short, an HFCL spokeswoman said.

Nahata said the US and Australian offices of Cofuture were being closed.

"The IT and software business is not too great at the moment and there is no point in incurring expenditure on it," he said.

"We have decided to concentrate on our core equipment business, which is very strong. No staff is being asked to go in the core equipment business. We may even absorb some of the staff from the services section."

HFCL has an order book of Rs 15 billion and expects a similar amount of orders this year, its chairman said.

HFCL shares fell Rs 3.55 or 4.5 per cent to Rs 74.40 at the Bombay Stock Exchange on Friday while the benchmark exchange index ended flat.

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