Amazon chief denies 'desperate cost cutting'

Amazon's UK boss has desperately defended the company's decision to slash 1,300 jobs and close one of its US warehouses, claiming it's a shrewd business move, not a drastic attempt to cut costs.

Despite the plethora of woes that have plagued Amazon since last year, Steve Frazier, MD of Amazon.co.uk, denied the company is in any trouble. In this week's silicon.com On the Spot interview, Frazier claimed Amazon has emerged unscathed from unionisation rows, job cuts, bankruptcy rumours and falling revenue. He said Amazon's finances are now so healthy the company will never have to seek capital again. "We have unparalleled assets in our favour. We have $1bn in cash and we're burning cash at a rate that allow us essentially to never have to seek cash again." His boss in the US, Jeff Bezos, may have sounded a note of caution last week, when he warned investors that Amazon stock is "volatile" in the current climate, but Frazier adopted a more bullish attitude. While admitting that Amazon.co.uk is actively seeking bricks and mortar partners, Frazier dismissed the claim that the company is caught in a transition period, having outgrown its dot-com label but not having yet emerged as a fully-fledged blue chip. "That's not the race we're running, to either shed a label or gain a label, the race we're running is to serve our customers well and to continue to innovate and grow our technology. Any company that has the brand visibility we have has an enormous opportunity to build a business of size. We'll let the labels emerge as they emerge," he said. He said that despite the slow down in the US economy Amazon was still on track to reach operating profitability by the end of this year.