TELECOMS group Marconi is gearing up to put more than a year of strife behind it by completing a life-saving financial overhaul.

The group has concluded negotiations with bondholders and banks and now expects to complete the restructuring deal on March 15. It unveiled the plans in August but has been locked in talks since then.

Chief executive Mike Parton said: "We have now nailed all of the outstanding details. When completed, it will give the company the balance sheet that's appropriate to the company that Marconi is today.

"We have broken the back of the issues facing us, from both an operational point of view and a restructuring point of view."

Marconi said the restructuring was "broadly in line" with details first announced in August.

Bondholders and banks have agreed to write off £4bn of debt in exchange for 99.5 per cent of the company, taking control away from shareholders.

Marconi has been forced to drastically shake up its finances after going on a spending spree at the height of the high-tech boom. That transformed it into a pure telecoms firm but also increased debt, then sales and profits fell away in the subsequent downturn.

In the past year, new management has been installed and costs cut by selling non-core businesses and slashing jobs. At the end of last month Marconi employed about 17,300 people compared with 32,600 in September last year.

It was aiming for a total head count of about 15,000 in its core businesses but Mr Parton said it now wanted the number to be nearer 14,000.

He said the revised figure would not involve further redundancies.

Instead, he said: "We're getting heads out of the business faster than we thought, but we don't expect to make any more major announcements. A lot of this will come from natural attrition and natural wastage."

The group is also shaking up the board and has named John Devaney as chairman. Formerly at logistics group Exel, Mr Devaney replaces Derek Bonham, who took up the role on an interim basis in September 2001.

Marconi also posted half-year figures after the ongoing talks meant they had to be delayed twice.

It said "solid progress" had been made regarding cost reduction and cash generation in the six months to September 30.

Core sales were £992m while group operating losses before goodwill amortisation and one-off items came to £235m.

Bottom-line pre-tax losses were scaled back from £5.11bn to £720m although last year's figure was hit by a series of write-downs.

Total turnover fell from £2.58bn to £1.11bn.

Shares in the group, which was once in the FTSE 100 Index of leading shares and worth more than £12, ended the day up four per cent, at 2.03p.