More than 200 redundancies will result from the partial closure of a factory at Deeside in North Wales and the rest through layoffs at an Australian plant.

The company said the markets it served for optical fibre and communication cables had deteriorated since it reported half year results 10 weeks ago.

Profits warning

The company has also warned its investors of an impending fall in profits and said the job cuts would cost the firm �25m.

BICC's share price tumbled 21% on the news. At 0930 local time, BICC was down 12 pence at 44p.

Finance director Ron Henderson said operating profits for the second half of the year would be around 20% lower than the �66m recorded at the half year stage.

Mr Henderson said: "Prices have deteriorated mostly from lower cable sales in Asia and Eastern Europe.

"This has been not just by us, but also by our customers. That situation appears to be stabilising but it is still early days."

The BICC statement said the company would continue to explore options and take "aggressive actions" to improve its position.

Mr Henderson said no further job cuts were planned but could not rule out further redundancies in the future.

BICC's half-year figures showed pre-tax profits down from �55m to �35m including an �11m exceptional cost.

Turnover fell from �2.22bn to �2.07bn.

Tractor plant axes 400 jobs

It was a similar gloomy picture in Coventry where Massey Ferguson announced on Monday that 400 jobs are to be axed at its tractor plant by the end of the year.

The company also blamed a slump in demand but said it hoped that most of the job cuts could be achieved by voluntary redundancies or early retirement.

This is the third major jobs blow to Coventry within the past month.