Hasbro said it would cut 1,000 jobs and announced the departure of its chief operating officer as the US toymaker reported preliminary results for the fourth quarter that were worse than previously forecast.
The job cuts, which represent about 15 percent of the global workforce, “are necessary to return our business to a competitive and industry-leading position,” chief executive Chris Cocks said in a statement on Thursday evening.
Hasbro said it will help the company achieve its goal, as part of a plan announced last October, of $250 million to $300 million in annual cost savings by the end of 2025.
The company, which makes the Monopoly board game and Transformers toys, said chief operating officer Eric Nyman would be leaving due to organizational and commercial changes. The company said in its latest annual report that it employs 6,640 people worldwide.
In preliminary results released on Thursday, Hasbro said revenue in 2022 would be $5.86bn, down 9 per cent from a year ago, or a 6 per cent decline in constant currency terms. That was worse than the October forecast, when it cut the full-year view, and analysts’ expectations of more than $6.1bn.
The company is also experiencing a low holiday season, which is usually a crucial sales period for toy manufacturers and retailers. Hasbro’s revenue for the three months ended December 26 was $1.68bn, down 17 percent from a year earlier and below Wall Street’s average forecast of $1.92bn.
Hasbro shares fell more than 7 percent in after-hours trading in New York on Thursday. At the end of the regular session, the stock was up 4.5 percent since the start of 2023, but has fallen about 29 percent over the past 12 months.