CREDIT management firm Intrum Justitia’s Liverpool headquarters may face further upheaval, thanks to a restructure of part of its business that could lead to job losses.

In April, the Swedish debt collection firm made a U-turn on a previous announcement that it planned to expand its Liverpool operation.

Now the company is restructuring its credit management services (CMS) arm, which provides debt collection services for clients.

Intrum said the arm had seen “unacceptable losses” in the first quarter of this year and warned “a solution will be implemented in 2009”.

Marcel van Es, Intrum’s acting regional managing director for the UK and Ireland, yesterday said the Liverpool office was not at risk of closure, but could potentially see redundancies as part of the restructure. Staff at the Old Hall Street base, which employs 230 people, are now being consulted over the plans.

The company said: “Intrum Justitia has carried out an extensive review of its operations in the UK, resulting in the conclusion that the CMS business would require substantial improvements and investments in order to stop the continuing losses. Based on these findings, a review of all CMS contracts has been ongoing since the end of April, with the aim of improving profitability in the business.

“Having carefully analysed the outcome of these efforts, Intrum Justitia proposes to adjust the operational capacity of its CMS business.

“This means that the current numbers of roles required in Intrum Justitia’s CMS business is likely to reduce, effectively putting jobs in CMS at risk of redundancy. Intrum Justitia is therefore commencing a period of formal consultation with staff dealing with these likely changes.”

Mr van Es said that, despite the challenges facing the CMS business, Intrum’s debt purchase arm was still profitable.

Intrum UK put out a statement in April saying that it wanted to create more jobs at its Liverpool base. But, days later, its Swedish parent said it had “no current plans” to increase its UK workforce and said the press release was “unauthorised”.

Later that month, it announced that Mr van Es’s predecessor, Chris Savage, had resigned due to “diverging views on the appropriate strategy for the UK & Ireland region”.