EBITDA up 17%, new roles created at Milton Keynes

Stuart Reid Bluefin

AXA-owned broking group Bluefin has revealed an increase in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for 2011 amid further finance job cuts.

Insurance Times reported in November that the company planned to cut 31 finance jobs at 17 ex-Smart and Cook offices. It has now followed suit at its Gravesend and West Wickam offices, with 23 more finance job cuts.

However, just as last year’s cuts created 14 new positions in Bluefin’s new centralised Milton Keynes finance function, the latest redundancies have created 12 new Milton Keynes jobs.

According to unaudited figures, Bluefin Insurance Group’s EBITDA for the year to 31 December 2011 were £17.8m, up 17% on the £15.2m it made in 2010.

Bluefin chief executive Stuart Reid said the job cuts were about efficiency and better service, as well as cost savings. He expects the effects of the changes to show in the 2012 results.

Reid added: “I can give no guarantees that there won’t be further redundancies, but there are no further big changes planned at the moment.”

Bluefin also revealed that 2011 income (turnover minus cost of sales), excluding the effects of the sale of The Health Insurance Group to AXA PPP in 2010, increased slightly to £103.2m in 2011 from £102.4m in 2010.

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