Varian Associates Inc, Palo Alto, California is planning to cut 600 jobs by the end of its fiscal year in September as part of a major repositioning of several of its businesses to improve the company’s longer-term financial performance: a number of non-core operations and minor product lines will be sold; the company identifies as core its electron devices, analytical instruments, semiconductor process and medical therapy equipment – but such moves don’t come cheap and it will have to take a one-time, pre-tax charge of $74m against third-quarter results, leading to a loss; on the block are GaAs units in Palo Alto and Santa Clara, and the Continental Electronics in Dallas and TVT Ltd, Cambridge, UK high-power transmitter building companies; the disposals cover $200m in annual sales and employ some 1,600 people.
