The bloodshed continued on Netflix Tuesday, with the far left streamer laying off nearly 150 employees as part of its ongoing efforts to cut costs in a disastrous subscriber forecast for the coming months.
Compounding the company’s problems, several hedge funds reportedly abandoned their stake in Netflix ahead of the publisher’s first-quarter earnings report, with more distrust of Wall Street than previously identified.
Netflix laid off about 150 employees, most of them US-based, on Tuesday, according to a Deadline report, many of whom have appeared in creative roles in both film and television.
“The slowdown in our revenue growth also means we need to slow our cost growth as a company. Unfortunately, we are laying off approximately 150 employees today, mostly from the US,” a Netflix spokesperson told Deadline.
“These changes are driven primarily by business needs rather than individual performance, which makes them even more difficult because none of us want to say goodbye to very good co-workers. We are working hard to support them through this very difficult transition.”
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings (left) poses with Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer, at a press conference in Seoul, South Korea. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-jun, file)
Netflix recently laid off employees in its animation department and its own fan site, Tudum.
The cost cuts follow Netflix’s disastrous Q1 report, which said the streamer lost 200,000 subscribers and is expected to lose another 2 million in the coming months. Netflix shares fell nearly 40 percent after the news.
Netflix shares fell as much as 68 percent in a year.
Many hedge funds removed their holdings from Netflix before earnings were announced, according to several reports that point to widespread pessimism about the company on Wall Street.
Funds such as Tiger Global Management, Winslow Capital Management and Scopus Asset Management have sold all their shares in Netflix.
As Breitbart News reports, hedge fund billionaire Bill Ekman recently sold 3.1 million shares of Netflix, which his fund bought a few months ago, saying he has lost confidence in the publisher’s ability to predict prospects for its future.
Adding to its problems, Netflix is now facing legal action from shareholders, whose executives accused it of misleading the public about the company’s subscriber growth.
Source: Breitbart
