North American Windpower: AMSC Cuts 25% Of Its Workforce Due To 'Challenging Conditions'

AMSC Cuts 25% Of Its Workforce Due To 'Challenging Conditions'

by NAW Staff Wednesday November 28 2012

As a result of what the company calls "challenging conditions in the wind power market," AMSC says it has reduced its workforce by approximately 25% to about 340 employees worldwide, as well as consolidated office space.

The company says the layoffs include reductions in all of its major geographic locations and functions.

"While the long-term prospects for renewable energy remain bright, conditions in the sector today are challenging," says AMSC President and CEO Daniel P. McGahn. "Financing and cashflow among wind farm developers and wind turbine manufacturers have been constrained, which has impacted growth plans for some of our Windtec Solutions partners.

“Given this environment, we made the difficult but prudent decision to reduce our workforce in order to weather the industry downturn and minimize our cash usage," he adds.

AMSC says the layoffs will reduce its annualized expenditures by approximately $10 million and will lower its annualized operating expenses, which include non-cash compensation costs, to less than $58 million, once the savings are fully realized in the fiscal quarter ending June 30, 2013.

In total, the company anticipates that it will incur restructuring charges of approximately $3 million to $4 million over the next two quarters relating to the workforce reduction and office consolidations. Of this total, AMSC expects to pay approximately $2 million in cash severance costs in the fiscal quarter ending Dec. 31.

AMSC notes that it has revised its financial forecast for the third fiscal quarter ending Dec. 31 as a result of anticipated wind turbine electrical control system shipment delays to some of its Windtec Solutions partners. AMSC now expects that its revenues will exceed $20 million for the quarter and that its net loss for the third quarter will be less than $24 million, or $0.46 per share.

The company says it expects that its non-generally accepted accounting principles net loss for the third quarter of fiscal 2012 will be less than $16 million, or $0.31 per share.

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