E-commerce auction giant eBay Inc. has announced plans to cut its staff by 10%, laying off about 1,000 employees.
The firm has attributed the cutbacks to restructuring and streamlining — not to the weakening economy or poor expectations in e-commerce.
EBay expects the reduction to result in pretax restructuring charges of approximately $70 million to $80 million.
“While never an easy decision to make, these reductions will help improve our operations and strengthen our ability to continue investing in growth,” said John Donahoe, eBay’s president and CEO.
As a part of this restructuring, eBay also has acquired two companies. EBay purchased Bill Me Later for approximately $820 million in cash and approximately $125 million in outstanding options.
It has also acquired Denmark’s leading online classifieds site, dba.dk; and that company’s vehicles site, bilbasen.dk; for approximately $390 million in cash.
The company expects to hit the low end of its third quarter 2008 revenue guidance and exceed GAAP and non-GAAP earnings per share guidance as issued in conjunction with its second quarter earnings release on July 16.
