Employees made to reapply for posts as Bart Becht completes £2.5bn takeover of Durex and Scholl manufacturer

SSL International, the manufacturer of Durex condoms, will reach the end of the road as an independent company this week, sparking anxiety among employees, who have been told to reapply for their jobs as part of a £2.5bn takeover by healthcare conglomerate Reckitt Benckiser.

Reckitt, led by Britain’s highest-paid corporate chief, Bart Becht, is expected to assume ownership of SSL on Monday, and intends to make cuts in sales, IT, marketing, human resources and finance, as it seeks £100m in annual savings by 2012.

“Everyone is reapplying for their roles,” said a source close to SSL. “Pretty much the whole of SSL is in the bar drowning sorrows.”

Becht, who earned £93m last year, wants to add SSL’s Durex and Scholl labels to Reckitt’s list of “power brands”, along with Strepsils, Nurofen, Clearasil and Veet. The takeover was greeted with gloom at SSL, which has in recent years seen plants in Guernsey, Derby and Cambridge close as production shifted to Asia.

Among SSL’s workforce, there is irritation with chairman Gerald Corbett, who last week added his signature to a letter from 35 business chiefs endorsing the coalition’s public spending cuts on the grounds that the private sector will soak up lost state-sector jobs. Although Reckitt anticipates long-term growth in Durex and Scholl sales, the immediate prospects for staff are bleak.

A Reckitt spokeswoman said the company intended to begin consultation with SSL staff tomorrow as part of a 90-day integration period: “We’ve been clear that where there are overlaps, people will have to apply for roles. We’re aware that people are anxious.”

SSL has a short but colourful corporate history. It was created by a merger of healthcare companies Seton and Scholl in 1998, followed by a takeover of Durex maker London International a year later. But an accounting scandal in 2001 over £22m in allegedly false invoices masked problems with the mergers. A Serious Fraud Office prosecution of former executives collapsed in 2005 and SSL has since expanded internationally, particularly in China, Japan and eastern Europe.

Darren Shirley, analyst at Shore Capital, expects Reckitt to expand the Scholl and Durex brands in Latin America and Africa, where they have little presence: “Reckitt have a record of swallowing businesses of this size and generating considerable synergies.”

Business: Manufacturing sector | guardian.co.uk