Hi-tech company Oxford Instruments has declared a £900,000 loss three months after announcing 60 job cuts.

In March the company closed its Eynsham plant, which employed about 115 people, and moved the remaining staff to its site at Tubney Woods, near Abingdon, now called Oxford Instruments NanoScience.

Chief executive Jonathan Flint said the 15 head office staff still at Eynsham were likely to move soon to Tubney Woods, which would have a total workforce of 250.

He said that without the one-off £6.6m cost of redundancies and removals, the underlying business was profitable and profits were likely to improve by at least £3m next year.

He said: "We are investing in research and development and concentrating on cutting-edge science. The magnet technology business was partly historic and we are getting out of high-volume production.

"I am confident that our growth strategy will start to bear fruit and I am sure that we will start recruiting again in the future."

He added: "Our new NanoScience business will operate at the very cutting edge of technology.

"We will have a few one-off magnet contracts where the technical achievements are challenging, but we have put enhanced controls in place to manage these contracts."

The two Eynsham buildings will be sold, he said. The company is still trying to sell a huge building in Abingdon, left vacant after a previous restructuring in 2001, when hundreds of jobs were axed.

Oxford Instruments, which employs 1,200 worldwide, was set up in 1959 by Sir Martin and Lady Audrey Wood to make low-temperature superconducting magnets then a pioneering technology, but now used in everything from hospital scanners to atom smashers.

After becoming millionaires when they floated the company on the stockmarket, they set up the Oxford Trust to promote science and innovation, and funded dozens of new high-tech start-ups in Oxfordshire.