Lexmark shares tumbled 23 percent Tuesday on news that quarterly earnings are down from the same period last year. And the company’s ongoing restructuring will mean another 500 pink slips for employees.
Following a mixed second quarter report that showed earnings inching down $3 million compared to 2014, the printing and imaging technology company headquartered in Lexington announced it intends to cut 500 jobs. Lexmark spokesman Jerry Grasso tells WUKY the layoffs come as the company works to integrate two recent high-profile acquisitions and eliminate job duplication.
"The restructuring we announced today is really to take advantage of the synergies that Lexmark is getting from the ReadSoft and Kofax acquisitions we've made the last two years," he says.
As for where those cuts will be concentrated…
"They're global and primarily within our enterprise software business segment," Grasso says.
Lexmark employs 2,300 people in Lexington and about 12,000 worldwide.
The news wasn’t all bad, however. Grasso points to encouraging growth in the company’s software and business solutions divisions – evidence, he says, that Lexmark’s shift away from printers and other hardware toward a more software and service-based model is beginning to take root.