Nine senior executives at Cadbury Schweppes are to leave the confectionery and soft drinks group as part of a management shake-up.
They include Simon Baldry, head of the Cadbury's business in Britain and Ireland.
The group said it is cutting its 100-strong senior management team by nearly 10 per cent and confirmed it will leave its expensive London headquarters early next year.
The world's largest confectionery group said the departure of the nine senior managers was part of a cost-cutting programme, full details of which will be announced on June 19.
The Dairy Milk chocolate and Trident gum group said it will move its Berkeley Square head office in Mayfair, occupied by 200 staff, during early 2008 to new offices in Uxbridge, west of London and near Heathrow Airport.
Cadbury's cost-cutting package is expected to trim about £200 million off annual costs, according to sources close to the situation, and will be presented on June 19 with its new strategy for its chocolate and sweets business. The plan will include factory closures among Cadbury's 60 worldwide confectionery plants and cut its global sweets workforce of about 50,000 as the group prepares to sell off its multi-billion pound North American soft drinks business and become a focused confectionery group.
As part of group restructuring, Cadbury is dividing its confectionery world into four regions with similar revenues streams rather than its old three-region structure.
It is splitting its Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region into two - Britain, Ireland, Middle East and Africa (BIMA) and then Europe - while the other two regions of the Americas and Asia-Pacific are left unchanged.
The current EMEA regional and UK confectionery head office will move to the group's new head office at Uxbridge from offices just to the north at Maple Cross.
The group is currently looking to sell its Dr Pepper and Snapple soft drinks business in an auction dominated by private equity players and likely to fetch up to £8 billion.
Cadbury Schweppes also said yesterday it had sold a batch of businesses as it remained on track to generate £250 million from disposals by the end of the year. Shares closed 10.5p down at 710p.
