Dot Com News from Week of January 14, 2002
- 1/19/02 - Wachovia Corp. plans to close 200 of its 2,700 branches as part of its merger with First Union, according to documents filed with federal regulators.
- 1/19/02 - eBay-owned Butterfields laid off 20 employees in its Los Angeles office this week, eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove said. The San Francisco-based traditional auction house, which eBay bought in 1999, will have about 140 employees after the job cuts.
- 1/18/02 - Next Level Communications slashed its fourth-quarter revenue estimate amid sluggish demand. The broadband-services company also said it will lay off about 120 employees.
- 1/18/02 - Talk Magazine is suspending publication amid an advertising slowdown. The magazine, co-owned by Hearst and Miramax, said its book-publishing operation will remain intact. Talk executives said the magazine's February issue, with actor Sean Penn on the cover, would be its last. The decision to cease publication was made following discussions between Talk Media and its partners, Hearst and Disney.
- 1/18/02 - Minnesota Mining announced a 17% jump in fourth-quarter net but said it will cut another 2,500 jobs as sales fell 6.6%.
- 1/17/02 - WorldCom Inc. said it is eliminating merit raises and stock-option grants for 30,000 of its 75,000 employees in 2002 as it seeks to cut costs amid slacker demand.
- 1/17/02 - Homestore.com Inc. took additional disciplinary actions related to its internal accounting probe. The moves come shortly after the resignation of the company's chief executive. The company said it terminated or accepted resignations from seven employees, including three who had previously been placed on administrative leave. Homestore said it may take additional disciplinary measures before the inquiry is complete.
- 1/16/02 - InterVoice-Brite Inc. will eliminate 102 positions in the U.S. and 23 in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East as part of a restructuring initiative designed to boost market share and earnings. The developer of call-automation systems also said it will close its control center and engineering group in Wichita, Kan., in 90 days and will move operations to headquarters in Dallas.
- 1/16/02 - LSI Logic Corp., the largest maker of custom computer chips, announced a restructuring that includes the biggest job cuts in its history. LSI said it will reduce its work force by 1,400, or 20%, while scaling back manufacturing in Japan and consolidating U.S. manufacturing at a plant in Gresham, Ore.
- 1/16/02 - Federated Department Stores Inc. said it is moving to close its Fingerhut catalog and Internet operations, completely dismantling the bold and costly e-commerce foray it made nearly three years ago.
- 1/16/02 - Slowing sales and fierce price competition in certain markets decimated profits in General Motors Corp.'s core automotive business in the fourth quarter. Because of the weak profit performance last year, GM said it won't pay bonuses to executives or other salaried workers in North America and won't give profit-sharing checks to its U.S. hourly workers.
- 1/15/02 - Performance Technologies Inc., maker of hardware for Internet-based telecommunications networks, said it will cut about 10 percent of its workforce as it prepares to post fourth-quarter earnings of about 8 cents per share.
- 1/15/02 - CMGI Inc., which owns Internet search engine AltaVista, said it will cut about 95 corporate jobs, reducing the total work force of the company and its majority-owned subsidiaries by less than 4 percent.
- 1/15/02 - Web graphics and animation software provider Macromedia says it has laid off "a few dozen" workers over the last quarter. The company said the layoffs were part of "everyday structural changes" and had been offset with a roughly equal number of new hires, leaving the company's head count where it began the new year, around 1,400.
- 1/15/02 - 3Com plans to cut another 500 jobs and consolidate certain corporate activities in a restructuring effort to help bring the company to profitability.
- 1/14/02 - Defunct Internet grocer Webvan Group Inc. said it received bankruptcy-court approval for a liquidation plan to distribute all of its remaining assets to creditors. The San Francisco-based company said it expected to have an undisclosed amount of funds available for distribution to its unsecured creditors but didn't expect to have any funds available for equity holders.