STRUGGLING company Bede has narrowed pre-tax losses to £1.56m in the third quarter as it predicts a return to profit by the end of the year.

Durham-based Bede, which designs, makes and services x-ray measurement tools for the semiconductor industry, said it expects a strong order book of £4.4m - more than double that of the same period last year - to pull it through to profit by December.

The company, based at Belmont Business Park, Durham, made the same prediction earlier in the year when it said shedding a fifth of its workforce had helped to reduce costs, to enable it to return to profit.

The company shed 11 jobs last year and a further ten in January.

Bede employs about 80 people at its Durham headquarters. It has operations in Prague and the US, where staff numbers were also reduced slightly over the year.

Chairman Stuart McIntosh said: "The group ends the quarter with a closing order book of £4.4m, up from £2.6m at the end of the second quarter. The group is expecting a significant part of this order book to be realised as revenue in the fourth quarter.

"Furthermore, the group expects to gain further orders from new and existing customers."

Bede was founded in 1978 by Professor Brian Tanner and three Durham University colleagues.