Beckman Will Reorganize, Cut 750 Jobs Worldwide : Cost-cutting: The Fullerton-based maker of medical laboratory equipment blames recession in Europe.

Beckman Instruments Inc., struggling with a deep recession in Europe that has slowed medical device sales, said Monday that it is eliminating 750 jobs worldwide and will combine its two divisions to save money.

The cost-cutting moves by the Fullerton-based maker of medical laboratory equipment could affect as many as 200 Orange County workers by March, the company said.

Richard Sears, vice president of human resources for Beckman, said the company hopes that the majority of job cuts in the United States will come through a voluntary separation program under which some employees will have the option of leaving the company and receiving lump-sum payments.

“We think what we are doing is very thoughtful and generous and respectful of people’s dignity,” Sears said in an interview at The Times on Monday.

But he acknowledged that there will inevitably be some layoffs by March, when the third part of a three-phase job elimination program ends.

“We don’t know how we will deal with that yet,” he said.

The news did not appear to cause a great deal of consternation at Beckman’s sprawling Fullerton headquarters. In the parking lot, several employees seemed unconcerned, though they said they were told about the job cuts Monday morning.

“Nobody’s panicking over here,” said an employee who said he had worked for the company for 31 years. “We’ve been through this all before.”

Several employees said that while they had heard about the early retirement package, they were not aware that it was part of a companywide restructuring.

“We’re too far down on the ladder,” joked one worker. “We’re always the last to know.” In the first phase of the work-force reduction, expected to begin next week, 350 jobs will be eliminated in Europe, Sears said, as plants there consolidate. In the United States, he said, 743 employees who are eligible for the voluntary separation program will have until Dec. 1 to make a decision. Employees in South America and Asia will not be affected.

Sears estimated that 300 to 350 U.S. workers will take the buyout, which would give eligible employees 1 1/2 weeks of pay for each year they have worked at Beckman. Only employees with more than 20 years of service are eligible for the separation program.

If the company does not reach its goal of eliminating 750 workers by December, department heads will begin layoffs, Sears said. By March, the company plans to have reached its goal, he said.

Separately Monday, Beckman announced earnings for the third quarter that indicated results for the year will be below analysts’ expectations. Profit rose to $11.5 million, or 42 cents a share, up slightly from earnings of $11.4 million, or 40 cents a share, a year earlier. Third-quarter revenue, however, fell to $215.6 million from $220 million for the same period last year, the company reported.

Beckman linked the revenue decrease to the recession in Europe, where governments have reduced reimbursements for medical devices. As a result, with the notable exception of eastern Germany, where billion of dollars are being invested to bolster that area’s poor medical system, medical device makers are finding it particularly difficult to post strong profits in Europe and will continue to do so until at least 1995, health industry experts said.

The announcement of the revenue decline and pending job cuts did not have a big effect the company’s stock price. In New York Stock Exchange trading, Beckman closed at $26.25 a share, down 50 cents.

Some analysts, however, cut back their earnings projections for the company.

Marie Conway, a health care analyst with NatWest Securities Corp., a New York brokerage, said that she had earlier projected that Beckman would earn $1.74 a share for 1993. She has now reduced that to about $1.68 a share.

Analyst Maureen McGann with the brokerage Merrill Lynch & Co. in New York projected that the cost-cutting program will save Beckman about $7 million next year.

“I wouldn’t say this is a surprise,” she said of the announcement. “These companies that are global have huge exposures with fluctuating economies.”

Beckman officials agreed, blaming the job cuts on bad financial times, especially in Europe.

With one of the worst recessions since World War II raging in Western Europe, companies such as Beckman, which depend on international sales for at least half of their sales, are particularly vulnerable, said Matt Gallivan, an analyst for the Health Industry Manufacturers Assn. in Washington. The association tracks medical device companies doing business in the United States and abroad.

The European recession, hitting especially hard in western Germany, France, Italy and Spain, has prompted those governments to tighten reimbursements for medical devices, Gallivan said.

“Definitely, we are hearing from device manufacturers that the entire European market is slowing down,” said Gallivan, adding that the growth rate in the European medical device market has fallen from 7% a year ago to just 4% now.

“Companies are increasingly trying to squeeze as much (waste) as they can and still remain competitive,” he said.

.j At Beckman, 57% of the company’s $908-million annual revenue is from overseas.

Times correspondent Debora Vrana contributed to this report.

Beckman Instruments: At a Glance

* Headquarters: Fullerton

* Business: Medical laboratory diagnostic equipment

* Total employees: 6,900 in 35 facilities worldwide

* Staff reduction goal: Nearly 11%, or 750 positions worldwide, including 400 in the United States

* Method: Buyout package, early retirement programs and release of temporary and contract workers

* Buyout terms: Employees with 20 or more years of service eligible for 1 1/2 weeks of separation pay for each year of service; continued medical coverage at employee rates for a limited time determined by length of service. A lump sum medical-insurance subsidy is included to offset premium costs for six months after leaving the company. Buyout participants also eligible for outplacement counseling, retraining scholarships and stock options.

* 1992 net income: $43.8 million on sales of $908.8 million, up 16%

* 1993 3rd-quarter net income**: $27.9 million on sales of $639.1 million, down 1.1%

** Nine-month figure

Sources: Beckman Instruments, Bloomberg Business News; Researched by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times