Following its acquisition by a healthcare services group, a West Yorkshire events specialist is to merge with another group subsidiary to form a £100 million business.

The move has put an as yet unspecified number of administrative jobs at risk at Cleckheaton-based WorldEvents.

The firm was acquired by Irish-based United Drug in November.

Consultations are taking place with affected staff.

The job cuts will result in duplication of some back-office roles which are to be centralised at United Drug’s main UK operations centre in Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire.

But WorldEvents, which employs 100 staff, expects to recruit more events management staff.

The business is being merged with another United Drug business, UniversalProcon, an event management company acquired in 2008.

The operation will be known as Universal WorldEvents.

It will have 250 employees in UK offices at Cleckheaton, Ashby-de-la-Zouch and London, as well as Holland, Germany, France, Italy, the United States, Hong Kong and Singapore.

The companies will merge on March 1 in a move that will create the largest business of its kind. Over the past year the companies managed more than 1,100 meetings and events in more than 45 countries.

Graham McIntosh, managing director of UniversalProcon, said: “There are a number of vacancies across both businesses as a result of new business wins and, where possible, these positions will be filled internally to minimise the incidence of redundancies.

“There will be no changes whatsoever as a result of this process to any of the client facing event teams on either side of the business.”

He will become managing director of Universal WorldEvents, with current WorldEvents managing director Martin Parry staying on the board and running key client relationships and having strategic project responsibilities.

Mark Saxby, WorldEvents sales and marketing director will retain a similar role in the merged business, with Andrew Winterburn as European director and Jeremy Wilson as finance director. UniversalProcon and WorldEvents teamed up in 2010 to contend for a major global healthcare contract and got to know each other during the process.

Mr Parry said: “Very quickly it became apparent that from a cultural and values perspective there were tremendous similarities between our businesses.”