News Burst: QXL to axe 100 staff after raising £30m
Online auction firm QXL (quote: QXL) confirmed Thursday that it has successfully completed a £30m round of funding, but admitted that it will axe a quarter of its staff by the middle of next year.
The financing secured by investment bank Credit Suisse First Boston means that QXL has £80m in cash, which it hopes will be enough to make it profitable by 2003. The planned redundancies are part of an effort to reduce overhead costs in order to move the company towards profitability earlier than expected.
QXL has been under increasing pressure from the growing slump in technology shares across the board. Its shares -- trading on the London Stock Exchange -- fell a further 30 percent to 17p, when earlier this year they were trading as high as 800p. The value of the company has dropped this year from £2bn to £75m.
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