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Lenovo to lose 2,500 staff worldwide

Business Materials 8 January 2009 12:15 (UTC +04:00)

Chinese-owned computer maker Lenovo on Thursday said it plans to lose about 2,500 staff, or 10 per cent of its global workforce, in the next three months, reported dpa.

The redundancies are a key part of a restructuring package designed to save Lenovo some 300 million dollars in its next financial year, which begins on April 1, the company said in a statement.

Lenovo, owned by China's Legend group, said it expects to announce a loss for the three months to December 31 last year, following a sharp drop in net profit for the previous quarter.

The 150-million-dollar "resource redeployment plan" will help the company "increase its efficiencies and become more competitive in the face of the continuing global economic downturn," it said.

"Although the integration of the IBM PC business for the past three years was a success, our last quarter's performance did not meet our expectations," Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo's chairman, said in the statement.

"We are taking these actions now to ensure that in an uncertain economy, our business operates as efficiently and effectively as possible, and continues to grow in the future," Yang said.

The job losses will include management and executive posts, with salary reductions for those remaining.

Lenovo will also combine its China and Asia-Pacific organizations into a single business unit.

Lenovo is the world's fourth-largest maker of personal computers by volume.

It bought IBM's personal computer business for 1.25 billion dollars in 2005.

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