The day after Siris Capital signed to finalize the purchase of EFI they laid off 400 employees and closed the headquarters in Fremont, CA. Recently, they made more massive cuts to the customers support teams in both the Inkjet and Software business units. Plus. the 20% pay cuts across the board as mentioned in a previous. post. It's a very toxic environment. Siris doesn't care about the customers or the employees.
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The company seems to struggle with regional execution and global functions. Since I have been there, we haven’t ever been able to get the senior team to set the right structure. It’s clear to everyone now that Guy stepped down so that Bill Muir could come in and put lipstick on the pig and find a buyer for this mess of a company. Bill did his job as the purchase by Siris made millions for himself and Guy and they both walk away without suffering thIs horrific aftermath. This company struggled for years, even during the good economic times, sort of begging to just be tweaked somehow to “unlock the true value” of being part of the global transition from analog to digital printing. I am guessing that was part of the attractiveness. But even when you put lipstick on a pig, it is still a pig, and Siris has now become painfully aware of their poor investment during this unprecedented economic downturn. I can’t think of worse timing / price for a company acquisition in recent history. Someone really screwed up on this one. The investors in Siris that put down the $1.7 billion for this train wreck should be demanding someone’s head!
What has happened at EFI is nothing short of a catastrophe. The total mismanagement and bungling by Guy, Marc and others — from the M&A roll up strategy in order to show growth to Wall Street that failed in the end (as all m&a roll ups do) to the financial accounting irregularities that resulted in imploding stock —- it should all be criminal. Instead, the top guys walk away with millions and the staff gets laid off or the 20% pay cut. How can the rank and file continue to make their rent or mortgage in the Bay Area with a sudden 20% hit? I don’t know - at this point, it might be better to be among the ones that get laid off with a package and then try to find something else. Hanging on to efi, it just gets worse and worse every year for the last several years. No stock, 20% pay cut, no 401k match? This has to be one of the biggest implosions in Silicon Valley from where they were a decade ago to now. Absolutely unbelievable!