This headline definitely caught my eye. It definitely sounds painful.
Jeff;
Vivendi Plans to Cut Uproar, Flipside Staffs in Half next
A month after it snatched up Alley games-and-prizes network Uproar (Nasdaq:
UPRO), Vivendi Universal Chairman and CEO Jean-Marie Messier said Uproar
will be consolidated with Flipside, a Vivendi online entertainment company.
The combination means that half of Uproar and Flipside's combined 300
employees will be cut.
Messier's comments on the consolidation were made at the FT New Media &
Broadcasting conference on Monday. "At the end of the day, both companies
will have 150 employees and will be profitable before the end of 2001,"
Reuters quoted Messier telling the conference.
In February, Flipside agreed to buy Uproar in a $140 million cash deal that
paid $3 for each of Uproar's 46.1 million outstanding shares. The deal was
made all the sweeter for Vivendi by Uproar's bulbous cash reserves, which
stood at $80 million.
The staff cuts will shrink even further an already slimmed-down Uproar
workforce, which last year numbered over 230. The company had moved its
technology and production operations out to Los Angeles late last year,
leaving the New York office with marketing, business development, and other
non-technical operations.
The Uproar Network operates uproar.com, iwin.com, and amused.com, while
Flipside runs similar games-and-prizes sites flipside.com and online casino
site virtualvegas.com. In January, Uproar shut down online gaming site
iBetcha.com, which it acquired in August 2000.
Jeff;
Jeff Barr - Vertex Development - (mailto:jeff@vertexdev.com)
Address: 4610 191st Place NE. Redmond, WA 98074;
Phone: Office: 425-868-4919 - Home: 425-836-5624
Homepage: http://www.vertexdev.com/~jeff
Weblog: http://jeffbarr.editthispage.com/
Resume: http://www.vertexdev.com/~jeff/real_jb_resume.html
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