By Euan Rocha and Rod Nickel
TORONTO/WINNIPEG, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Canadian meat packager
Maple Leaf Foods MFI.TO is cutting some 300 to 400 jobs,
mainly at the corporate level, after pushing back its timeline
for hitting a key profitability target last month, according to
two sources familiar with the matter.
The company, which is near the end of a major restructuring
plan, is looking to extract further savings, said the sources,
who were not publicly authorized to discuss the matter.
The company could not be reached immediately for comment.
Maple Leaf, one of Canada's biggest pork processors, rolled
out a program in 2010 to boost earnings by shutting some plants
and modernizing others.
It has also shed some of its assets in a move to focus on
its meat business. Last year, it sold its bakery unit, Canada
Bread to Mexico's Grupo Bimbo BIMBOA.MX for C$1.83 billion
($1.38 billion) in cash.
The new round of cuts come less than a month after Maple
Leaf disappointed investors by delaying into 2016 its target for
increasing earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and
amortization as a percentage of revenue to 10 percent. It had
earlier said it planned to meet that target in 2015.
($1 = 1.3300 Canadian dollars)