Grainger Cuts 178 Jobs; Shuts Down Internet Venture
Lake Forest, Illinois, April 23 (Bloomberg) -- W.W. Grainger Inc., a seller of maintenance and repair products, will cut 178 jobs as it shuts down its money-losing Internet venture.
The reductions, which represent about 1 percent of Grainger's more than 16,000 employees, will take place at the Material Logics unit. The venture is based in the Chicago suburb of Lincolnshire and operates Web sites FindMRO.com, TotalMRO.com and MROverstocks.com.
Lake Forest, Illinois-based Grainger, which sells products such as compressors, lighting equipment and motors, said the sites have failed to attract enough customers. Grainger.com, the company's main venue for selling products on line, won't be affected, said spokeswoman Jan Tratnik.
The company will combine FindMRO.com, which helps customers locate hard-to-find products, into Grainger.com. It will close down TotalMRO.com, an industry site that features several sellers in addition to Grainger, and MROverstocks.com, an auction site for excess inventory.
Grainger will take second-quarter charges of $24 million, or 25 cents a share, to close Material Logic and $14 million, or 15 cents, to write-off investments in other failed technology ventures. The combined charges will reduce second-quarter earnings by 40 cents a share, the company said.
Grainger said eliminating its losses from Material Logic will help offset the charges. As a result, the company still expects to meet its previous earnings outlook for the full year of $1.80 to $2.10 a share.
The shares of Grainger rose $1.83, or 5.2 percent, to $36.79.
Apr/23/2001 16:08 ET |
