Seagate cutting 6000 jobs with Maxtor deal

Computer hard-drive maker Seagate Technology said it planned to cut about 6,000 jobs as part of its just completed $1.9 billion acquisition of rival Maxtor Corp.

Seagate said the job cuts would come from Maxtor's workforce of about 12,000, meaning about 50 percent of that company's would not offered positions with new Seagate. The company said the job cuts, which will mostly impact workers in Europe and the United States, would be finished by the end of the year.

The deal gives Seagate, which makes disk drives for Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 gaming console as well as for personal computers, a more than 40 percent share of the disk drive market. It previously had about a 30 percent share.

Singapore Airlines profit slips

news.airwise.com :

Singapore Airlines suffered its fifth straight quarter of lower profits due to record fuel costs and said the soaring price of jet fuel was its main headache. SIA spent SGD$1.12 billion (USD$714 million) on jet fuel for its 90 aircraft in the three months to March - or more than four times as much as its net profit of SGD$266.3 million (USD$169.8 million) for the same period. The airline faces "runaway fuel prices", Chief Executive Chew Choon Seng said.

For the full year to March, the state-controlled airline reported a net profit of SGD$1.24 billion (USD$790.5 million) - down 8.3 percent on the previous year. Its annual fuel bill was SGD$4.24 billion (USD$2.7 billion), up 57.5 percent from a year ago and higher than ever before.

Even with the rocketing cost of fuel, Singapore Air - unlike many other airlines - has never made an annual loss. Among the world's most profitable airlines, Singapore Air is 57 percent-owned by Temasek, Singapore's state investment arm. Industry group IATA says airlines lost a total of USD$6 billion last year, including big losses by US carriers, mainly due to higher fuel costs.

Malaysia Airlines to chop 6000 under MYR 600m scheme

sg.biz.yahoo.com :

Malaysia Airlines will launch a 600 million ringgit (USD $166 million) scheme to lay off some 6,000 employees as part of a plan to haul the ailing carrier out of the red. The Star newspaper said Malaysia Airlines will reduce its 23,000 workforce by a quarter under the voluntary separation scheme which is believed to be the largest ever announced in the country's corporate sector.

Under the turnaround plan, announced in March after the airline posted a 1.3 billion ringgit annual loss for 2005, it will surrender all but 19 major domestic routes to lowcost carrier AirAsia. The troubled carrier also plans to cut out unprofitable international routes and sell off its landmark headquarters in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia Airlines has blamed its losses on crippling fuel prices and lower load factors but hopes to be back in the black by 2007.

(2006-05-23 12:33:54 SGT) [Biz] Permalink

$68 the new floor?

Crude oil prices have bounced right off $68 and are now in the $70 range again. So, is $68 the new floor - or will it crash through this and drop back to the $60 range? We'll see.

(2006-05-23 10:21:45 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

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