Transport and property management company WS Atkins has seen its finances slip into the red.

But the firm, which employs 300 staff at its Eynsham branch, said the £2.5m loss was better than the £5m it had predicted in October and that a recovery was now underway.

Chairman Michael Jeffries said: "The underlying operational performance of the business is sound.

"We have been adversely impacted by the costs of introducing our new finance systems and back office processes.

"However, we have largely caught up on billing and our debt collection is much improved. The board is optimistic we can re-establish the group's financial perfor- mance."

In October, the company announced it was making 400 redundancies, although only one job has gone at Eynsham.

In November it was reported that the group's commercial property firm Lambert Smith Hampton was believed to be involved in negotiations to stage a management buy-out.

But that has been dismissed as "speculation".