Sibelius UK Office Closes : Avid Selling Consumer Businesses (original) (raw)
On July 2, 2012, Avid Technology announced it is divesting its consumer businesses and streamlining operations. The company will focus on its Media Enterprise and Post & Professional division. Avid will continue to develop and sell their Pro Tools® line of software and hardware, as well as some associated I/O devices such as Mbox and Fast Track.
The company’s “facility footprint” is also being reduced. T he Sibelius headquarters in the UK will be closed.
As part of the restructuring, Avid will reduce the number of its permanent employees base by approximately 20%. As part of the transactions, certain employees of Avid will transfer to each acquiring company.
The company’s consumer audio products are being sold to inMusic, the parent company of Akai Professional, Alesis and Numark.
Avid Technology’s headquarters are in Burlington, MA, USA.
Gary G. Greenfield, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Avid Technology Inc. since December 19, 2007 and its President since May 2008 will continue serving his executive contract, which has a term of five years. According to the 2007 SEC filing, this executive agreement shall be extended in the event of a change-in-control of the Company or a potential change-in-control of the Company occurring in 2012.
Effective July 2, 2012, Kirk E. Arnold will cease to serve as the Company’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer (COO).
On December 12, 2011, one employee of Avid wrote an anonymous review on the website Glass Door prophetically entitled “Stay Away and / or Plan Your Exit Strategy“:
“To the Board of Directors: employees assume you are looking to dissolve Avid and sell the company off in bits and pieces. It’s been rumored for years, it’s the buzz throughout the industry right now thanks to the mess you’ve allowed to happen internally…”
This is a sad day for the excellent team of employees at Sibelius, many of whom have been with the company since it was founded in 1993 by Ben and Jonathan Finn.
The implications of how this will ultimately affect these employees and also end users of Sibelius are not yet clear.
Sibelius was purchased by Avid in 2006 for $23m cash (£12.2m).
UPDATE : July 7, 2012
Avid’s VP of Audio Product & Solutions, Martin Kloiber, posted an open letter on the Avid community forum which says, in part:
“The (UK) office closing is part of Avid’s larger strategic reorganization, and while it does impact members of the Sibelius team, we’d like to stress that this should not in any way be considered a diminishment in our commitment to Sibelius.”
Read the full letter and add a comment in response here, or you can email directly to community_feedback@avid.com.
UPDATE : August 21, 2012
AVID : FINANCIAL
PRESS RELEASES :
- Avid Technology to Expand Product Engineering Lab in Kyiv, Ukraine (11/29/11)
- Avid Press Release
- inMusic Press Release (PDF)
- Avid Technology Company Presentation 7/1/12 (4.3MB PDF)
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DISCUSS : AVID
- Avid on Facebook
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AIR Software Group, Akai Professional, Alesis, Alto Professional, ION Audio, M-Audio, MixMeister, Numark, Sonivox