Wattles' Firm Issues Layoff Of 45 Workers
By Steve Smith -- TWICE, 10/30/2008
Thornton, Colo. — Wattles Capital Management (WCM), whose chairman/CEO is Mark Wattles, owner of Ultimate Electronics and an activist investor in Circuit City, laid off 45 employees, here.
 Mark Wattles |
The employees work at the headquarters of WCM, which also houses Ultimate’s headquarters store.
Wattles told TWICE the layoff happened earlier this week due to general economic conditions and involved employees who work at WCM and have some responsibilities that “overlap” with Ultimate Electronics operations.
He said the layoff is by no means an indication of any trouble at Ultimate Electronics. “We are probably the only [CE] retailer with positive year-on-year comp sales. Our comp-store sales have been up last quarter, in September and in October.”
Wattles said that during the fourth quarter Ultimate will be “focusing on our strength, which is audio/video” but does not mean it is discontinuing its white-goods effort, which was originally announced in September 2007.
“We have remodeled four stores” with major appliances and has three more in the process of being converted, Wattles said.
Ultimate operates 32 stores in Colorado and in several Western and Midwestern states. It had annual CE sales of $387 million during calendar year 2007 and ranks 36th in the TWICE Top 100 CE Retailers Report.
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Mark had a lot to say about my buddy Phil. Now it's time to look in the mirror as he circles the drain.
Tony Walker - 2008-1-11 08:40:00 EDT -
Smoke screens hide the truth. Wattles laid off staff that was multi-tasking WCM and Ultimate Electronics and he wants everyone to believe all is well. Many have left because the UE culture allows managers to harass quality people out of their jobs and promote incompetent sales partners to management. In our area, non-performing rejects from a competitor are the main new hires and they have low standards when it comes to customer service.
UE might be driving volume, but the margins we are seeing are so thin that we might as well be wearing blue shirts and getting paid hourly. I bet the exorbitant year end bonuses to managers are over!
I am surprised UE lasted this long. The reckoning is coming and stores like UE that depend on price closing sales partners will get run the rest of the way over by Best Buy, Wal-Mart and Sam''s before next Summer!
Barbie Q - 2008-1-11 02:28:00 EDT -
Not so hard to post a comp increase after consecutive years of double digit decreases.
Fred - 2008-31-10 16:33:00 EDT
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