At least 10 staff have lost their jobs at Gillin Park Retirement Village since national company Aevum took bought out Melbourne-based IOR in January.

Now Aevum is fending off a move from its largest stakeholder Stockland which offered $266 million earlier this month and said it wanted to sell Aevum's aged care business or form a joint venture with a partner.

Gillin Park is one of 30 villages in the Aevum holding and has about 200 beds in a mixture of independent and supported-living sections on its east Warrnambool site.

The Standard understands the redundancies included the long-time general manager and maintenance manager, quality assurance manager, wounds manager, housekeeping supervisor, accountant, receptionist, a domestic worker, two staff supervisor positions and three after-school junior jobs.

Aevum spokeswoman Nicole Quince said the company had made "a few changes to the structure for operational reasons".

"We are not planning on closing down the site," she said.

"We have replicated similar roles, shifts and hours as compared with our other Aevum sites.

"This is to reflect best practice in aged care.

"We believe these changes will improve the efficiency of Gillin Park and provide better service to our residents overall."

However, a former staff member who was retrenched in March painted a more gloomy picture.

"People are worried about the cutbacks in staff and standards," she said.

"I feel sorry for many of the residents whose dear friends were made redundant."

Gillin Park started about 22 years ago with a few units and is now one of the largest retirement centres in the south-west.

Three years ago it added 24 single-bedroom units and 14 independent units.

Aevum, which has its origins in Ballarat when a benefits society was established to help Irish Catholics with funeral and sickness benefits, was listed on the stock exchange in 2004.

Its expected net profit for 2009-10 was about $14m.