OPERATING profits plunged by 90 per cent last year at one of the north's biggest engineering firms Caterpillar as its sales in the US in particular haemorrhaged.
Bosses at the former FG Wilson operation blamed "challenging global economic conditions" for the slump, which has also resulted in a number of job losses at its local operations.
But they insist the business - which employs close to 1,900 people across sites in Larne, Monkstown and west Belfast - has made "considerable progress" in diversifying its operations in Northern Ireland.
Financial figures submitted to Companies House show that generator-maker Caterpillar's pre-tax profits fell from £28.7 million in 2013 to just £3.8 million in the 12 months to last December.
And bottom line profit came in at £3.4m against £21.6m a year earlier as turnover fell back from £626.2m to £600.1m.
The company's headcount during the period dropped from 1,947 staff to 1,883, and as a result the volume of power generation units it completed was also down, falling from 27,923 to 20,541.
That's a far cry from just three years ago when Caterpillar, still known then as FG Wilson, churned out nearly 50,000 generation sets for customers in 180 countries.
Caterpillar NI sells more than half of its output in Europe, doing £128m of sales in the UK (up from £83.7m a year earlier) and £276.2m in the rest of the European Union (down from £302.2m).
But in north America is sales plummeted from £30.4m in 2013 to £8.4m, while rest of the world sales were also down from £209.9m to £187.4m.
Despite staff numbers falling by more than 100, the company's wages bill rose from £71.5m to £79.3m, with its directors' remuneration package also rising.
The highest-paid director at Caterpillar NI picked up £666,000 in 2014 against £568,000 a year earlier.
Since the figures were filed, the company has made more cuts from its workforce, with 35 people going from its electric power division at the end of June
The company said the division was taking "measures to better align its organisational structure, resulting in a more efficient and competitive business model to better serve our customers".
In a statement last night Caterpillar Northern Ireland's regional operations director Robert Kennedy told the Irish News: “We made a profit of £3.8 million before tax in 2014, despite very challenging global economic conditions and taking account of a number of significant one-off costs and investments in the business.
"We remain strongly committed to developing and diversifying our operations in Northern Ireland, and have made considerable progress in this regard with the commencement of wheeled material handler production and the production of articulated truck axles, both of which will bear fruit into the future.”
