A proposal was put to DC Ross staff yesterday by its owning company, Scott Technology, suggesting the business would go through a two-step closure in February and April.
The proposal comes a day after Scott Technology’s chief executive Chris Hopkins stepped down from his role at the company’s annual meeting.
A DC Ross staff member who wished to remain anonymous said workers were disappointed by a proposal he said was obviously a certainty.
It came as a surprise, as most workers believed the company was doing well.
Those losing their jobs included management, design, tool makers and production workers.
Scott Technology’s chief operating officer, Richard Jenman, said market conditions and competition with bigger companies around the world had led to the proposal to close DC Ross.
"DC Ross was a business that Scott purchased two years ago. It was under liquidation at that stage and closure was imminent.
"I guess the reason it was in liquidation was because it was operating in almost primarily the fine blanking materials for the Australian automotive industry.
"And [with] the closure of that it became very distressed ... we thought that by picking it up and going through some cost reduction activities — looking at the synergies within the group [and] a really motivated team — we thought we could perhaps turn that around and develop other opportunities ...
"Successful businesses in this market are very large. They have much bigger economies of scale and they’re now much closely located to where automobile assembly is, which is in Asia and the US. We’re too far away, we’re too small and just can’t get the economy of scale."
DC Ross was also losing too much money for Scott Technology to keep it going, Mr Jenman said.
"The one thing that is certain is that we won’t be carrying on the business in its current form and sustaining the losses that it is, it’s something the group won’t tolerate."
He did not want to give figures on how much was being lost.
"In terms of percentage of revenue, it’s significant.
"We are subsidising the business significantly with work from within the group."
The proposal was now with staff, who had two weeks to consider it.
A decision is likely by December 13.
"We think that within two weeks we will be in a position to receive the feedback, consider it and make a decision," Mr Jenman said.
"If we get a line of feedback that causes us to reconsider something or do some more investigation on the validity of a particular scenario, we would happily extend that period."
DC Ross evolved from early 1900s Dunedin company William Wilson, which started out repairing bicycles and printing machines before getting some Cadbury contracts.
In 1962, Doug Ross took over Wilson & Wilson, as it was then, with colleague Gerald Hoare, and formed D.C. Ross Ltd in 1963.
