USA: Avon announces further job losses as share price falls

Avon, one of the world’s largest direct sellers of cosmetics, has said it will halt further roll out of its order management technology and initiate a further 650 job cuts after the company’s shares fell 5% in early trade. The new redundancies comes on top of the 400 job cuts it announced in April of 2013.

Sales in Canada fell in the most recent quarter due to disruption caused by the technology, the roll out of which began in 2009.  Avon’s shares also dropped by 4% at $17.05 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Avon’s expects to record a pre tax non case charge of about $100m- 125m in the fourth quarter of 2013, to reflect the write-down of capitalised software. There is an expected $35 million-$45millon in charges before taxes, mainly related to job cuts in the fourth quarter and for the remaining months leading up to 2014.

Source: Reuters