Business Notes

SAN DIEGO — Gateway reported last week it will undergo a 25 percent staff reduction — just under 5,000 employees of its worldwide workforce. It also plans to pull out of the Asian market and consider making the same move in Europe, in order to quickly shrink costs and regain profitability by the end of the year.

ATLANTA — Home Depot said it expects capital expenditures for the second half of fiscal 2001 will be about $2 billion. The majority of these expenditures will be for new stores, said the retailer in its 10-Q filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission last week. Home Deport plans to add 204 new stores and relocate four stores during fiscal 2001, which runs through the end of January 2002.

FT. WORTH, TEXAS — RadioShack cut 206 corporate positions earlier this month in an ongoing effort to cut costs. As reported previously by TWICE, casualties of the belt-tightening included senior executives Henry Chiarelli, Chuck Thompson and Dave Martella (see TWICE, Aug. 20, p. 3). According to a RadioShack spokesperson, the company first eliminated nine executive positions as part of a corporate restructuring, which reduced the number of vice president posts from 72 to 63. The following week, 197 corporate staffers were also pink-slipped. No further staff reductions are planned, the spokesperson said.

BOSTON — Shareholders of office supplies retailer Staples approved last week a buyback plan to convert shares of online unit Staples.com into Staples common stock. The controversial stock reclassification allows Staples to fully integrate Staples.com with its catalog business and its retail stores in hopes of achieving synergies and efficiencies in both operations. This comes after a Delaware judge approved the deal as part of a settlement in a shareholder lawsuit which claimed the buyback plan favored company executives and large investors who had paid $3.25 for Staples.com shares two years ago. The current plan valued Staples.com shares at about $7 each.