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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: StanX Long who wrote (60580)	2/15/2002 2:43:56 AM
From: StanX Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Oh ya, things are really looking up. Sony Offers Severance Plan to 3,500 Malaysian Workers (Update3) By Ian Messer and Hiroshi Suzuki quote.bloomberg.com Kuala Lumpur, Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Sony Corp. gave 3,500 workers the option to quit at a Malaysia factory making MiniDisc players and other audio products, part of the second-largest consumer-electronics maker's drive to cut costs. Tokyo-based Sony last week offered the severance packages to non-production line workers at its Penang plant, about 40 percent of the total, spokesman Gerald Cavanagh said. The plant mainly makes products for the Southeast Asian market, Cavanagh said. Tokyo-based Sony is trying to accelerate its withdrawal from unprofitable businesses and cut marketing and purchase costs. The company expects an operating loss of about 30 billion yen ($225 million) in the quarter ending March 31 for its electronics operations, which includes the music players and televisions that made the company famous two decades ago. ``There's some fat to be cut,'' said Masafumi Fujiwara, who helps manage about 132 billion yen at Daiwa Asset Management Co., and owns Sony shares. ``Sony has not been conspicuous in restructuring among Japan's consumer electronics makers. While it's doing better than its domestic competitors, Sony is struggling to be as profitable as its global peers.'' About 9,000 employees work at the plant, which was opened in 1988, Sony said. The company does not know how many of the 3,500 workers will accept the offer, which will remain open until the end of this month. Workers who sign up will receive payments at the end of March. Sony President Kunitake Ando last year vowed not to fire tens of thousands of workers like some of its Japanese rivals to weather the global economic slowdown. Instead, Sony planned to step up cost-cutting measures, Ando said. In November, Sony said it has no plans to cut any of workers, although Sony (Malaysia) Sdn.'s Managing Director Kazuo Suyama said audio products will ``continue to face some tough times.'' The maker of the PlayStation 2 video-game console, which has slashed its earnings forecast twice this fiscal year, expects net income of 10 billion yen in the 12 months ending March 31. Sony shares fell 20 yen, or 0.3 percent, to 5,950 yen.