SHL loses 200 jobs in US

SHL Systemhouse's parent company, MCI, has cut 200 jobs in North America following the US telecoms preparations for its merger with WorldCom.

The redundancies occurred in sales and repair operations. Tim Grace, media relations manager at MCI, confirmed 150 jobs have gone in Canada and 50 in the US.

However, MCI stressed there would not be any UK redundancies, despite continuing speculation that it would undergo a restructure.

Jonas Hjerpe, SHL Systemhouse marketing director, said: 'MCI are still making changes on a global and UK basis,' but refused to give any further details. SHL made about eight per cent of its UK staff redundant last summer.

Mark Weeks, head of corporate communications at WorldCom, said: 'SHL is a successful business in its own right, and will continue be run as it is now.'

Sandy Cals-Summers, an analyst at Dataquest, said SHL was bound to be implicated with the merger, but not in the short-term. She said: 'SHL will probably be one of the last companies to be impacted by this.' She added that the UK reseller is a separate business, left to run the systems integration side with different management.

The $37 billion deal with WorldCom, approved by shareholders on 11 March, was still being pushed through, although US authorities have requested more information from both companies. MCI and WorldCom are confident the deal will be concluded by summer.

BT's merger plans were thwarted when WorldCom offered $37 billion in a hostile bid. SHL - acquired by MCI in 1995 - was to have been merged with Syntegra, BT's Systems Integration arm.