♦  Bosch Rexroth’s sales for 2008 were 9.8% up on the previous year, increasing its turnover to €5.8bn. It is forecasting a “significantly weaker” performance for 2009, but wants to preserve as many jobs as possible among its core workforce, and says it is maintaining r&d investment at a level above the industry average.

♦  Following earlier announcements by Parker Hannifin that it was reducing its global workforce by 9,000, it has revealed that it has cut its executive salaries by 10%. Some executives’ total compensation packages, including incentives, could fall by up to 60%.

♦  Schaffner has acquired the German manufacturer Betec-Engineering, which specialises in active harmonic filters and has a turnover of around €2m. Betec’s Bluewave active filters will complement Schaffner’s Ecosine passive harmonic filters, launched last year.

♦  Rexnord, the US-based producer of power transmission and water management products, has reduced its workforce by about 1,000, or 14% of its total. It is also reducing costs in other areas of its business, with a major focus on materials.

♦  More than 26 million industrial networking nodes were installed worldwide during 2007, according to a new report from IMS Research, which predicts that the growth rate in installed nodes between 2007 and 2013 will average 7.8% per year, with Ethernet growing more than twice as fast as the average.

♦  The US bearings manufacturer Timken is cutting its workforce by up to 400 during 2009, in addition to the 2,500 positions that it has removed in the past 15 months. It has also introduced measures such as short working weeks and reduced operating hours as it attempts to “right-size” its cost structure.