• Home
  • About me: Jim Fitzpatrick
  • Contact

JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« Sprint’s pace slows to a crawl, and a one-time customer explains why he dumped the “hometown company”
Maybe Michael Brown didn’t have his hands up, but why did Officer Wilson find it necessary to go directly to confrontation? »

More than 35 years separated, The Star and Sprint Corp. follow similar tracks

November 5, 2014 by jimmycsays

Quick follow-up on Sprint…with a parallel story about The Kansas City Star.

It turns out, according to a story posted the kansascity.com website today that Sprint’s workforce reduction this fall will actually come in at about 3,700 people, not the 2,700 the company indicated earlier.

Two days ago, on Monday, Marcelo Claure, Sprint’s new c.e.o., said that Sprint would reduce its workforce by an additional 2,000 people, over and above 687 people whom it downsized in October. Today, however, the company acknowledged that the 687-figure had actually mushroomed to about 1,700, putting the October-to-end-of-the-year cuts at about 3,700.

KC Star business reporter Mark Davis paraphrased Sprint spokesman Doug Duvall as saying that Sprint was offering voluntary buyouts to reach at least part of the 2,000 jobs left to be cut. If that didn’t get the job done, so to speak, layoffs would follow.

Davis also reported that employment in the Kansas City area will end this week at about 6,800, where it had been 7,500 earlier this year.

To put all this in perspective, The Star ran a chart on Monday, showing that in January 2007 — less than eigh0t years ago — Sprint had about 65,000 employees. In mid-September, the number was down to 33,000. Take away the new 3,700 and the company will have slightly less than 30,000 employees by the end of this year.

Of course, Sprint isn’t the only major Kansas City company taking the gas as a result of circumstances in and out of its control.

About the same time that Sprint had 65,000 employees, The Star had more than 2,000 employees. That’s now down to well under 1,000.

I’m betting now that The Star will be around, as a company called The Kansas City Star, longer than Sprint Corp. I think the Japanese company SoftBank, which owns 80 percent of Sprint, will probably offload at some point.

Among other tangents of a Sprint unraveling, I think we can look for the Sprint Center to get a name change within the next few years.

claure

Claure

And what’s the deal with this fellow Claure, a reputed Miami billionaire who reportedly has moved, or is moving, his family to the Kansas City area as part of his effort to revive Sprint?

Claure’s main push since taking over three months ago has been to oversee a goal (or, more likely, implement a SoftBank demand) that Sprint reduce its annual budget by $1.5 billion.

It looks to me like Inspector Claure is a glorified hatchet man. I expect him and his family to be back on South Beach within a year.

There’s another KC Star corollary here…Not long after Capital Cities Inc. bought the employee-owned paper in 1977, Jim Hale, the man whom Cap Cities sent in as publisher, hired a guy named Gerald Garcia as executive editor. Like Hale, Garcia hailed from Texas, as I recall. Garcia walked around the newsroom with a perverse, snarling, grin pasted on one side of his face.

One day, Garcia summoned 20 or more highly paid employees in a conference room — most of them had made a lot of money in the $2-for-$1 stock sale — and told them they were finished. Just like that…pack up, it’s time to go.

Not long after that, Garcia left the paper and went off to points unknown. The executioner’s job was finished, too.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

3 Responses

  1. on November 6, 2014 at 8:39 am Thomas R Shrout Jr

    I would be interested in your perspective on Gary Forsee’s tenure at Sprint then on to the University of MO. I have trouble reconciling his MU stint with having operated a huge Kansas Business. Am I being too parochial?


    • on November 6, 2014 at 9:31 am jimmycsays

      It seems to me your instincts are right on target, Tom. Plus you bring up a pertinent issue, based on looming questions about Claure and his sketchy role.

      MU’s hiring of a big-time, but ultimately failed corporate c.e.o., always smacked of a “he-must-be-able-to-handle-this-job” attitude at the university. WRONG! They should have looked for someone with a strong academic background.

      Listen to what Wikipedia has to say about Forsee and the transition to MU.

      “Forsee was ousted after Sprint lost 337,000 customers in the third quarter of 2007, and a little over six months later the company wrote off $31 billion related to the (Sprint Nextel) merger—essentially writing off three quarters of $42 billion Nextel’s market capitalization value as of the time of the merger. In a significant reversal of market perception of his performance, the former “Best Manager” was named one of the “Worst CEOs” in 2009 by Fortune Magazine based on the disastrous outcome of the Sprint Nextel merger.

      “Despite Gary Forsee’s widely reported poor management performance throughout the Sprint Nextel merger and afterwards, he was awarded a severance package that ChiefExecutive.net described as “exceptional.” Foresee’s severance package added up to over $40 million, including a $1.5 million salary through 2009, $5 million in bonuses, stock options and restricted shares worth $23 million and an $84,000-a-month pension for life.

      “After resigning from Sprint Nextel under fire, but before his last day on the job with Sprint Nextel, Forsee accepted a position as the 22nd President of the four-campus University of Missouri System on December 20, 2007. He succeeded Gordon H. Lamb, who had served in the position since April 2007. Mr. Forsee began his duties Feb. 18, 2008. His term has not been without controversy, however. Shortly after being named one of the “Worst CEOs,” Forsee was again on the hot seat over alleged insider dealing in a transaction between the University of Missouri and Cerner Corporation, under which Cerner would provide healthcare information services to the University and assimilate members of the University’s I.T. department in the process. Forsee’s son worked at Cerner for several years prior, and Forsee served on corporate boards with Cerner’s CEO, Neal Patterson. The matter quickly fell to back pages of the news and the uproar died down, but mistrust of Forsee was evident within UM’s ranks, according to news reports published at the time. After taking an extended leave since December 2010 to care for his wife, Sherry, who was diagnosed with cancer, Forsee announced his immediate resignation to the UM Board of Curators on January 7, 2011.”

      I guess it’s no wonder he hasn’t worked since…$5 million in bonuses, stock and restricted shares worth $23 million and an $84,000-a-month pension for life.

      Like recently fired KU head football coach Charlie Weis, Forsee is no better, in my view, than a bank robber. His next endeavor, in fact, should be establishing a “University of Fleecers,” which would devote itself to schooling aspiring crooks how to make big bucks and avoid criminal charges.


  2. on November 6, 2014 at 9:58 pm Larry Luper

    Forsee’s Folly was the purchase of Nextel. Forsee (and the shareholders) bought Nextel – an iDEN Network that was never melded into Sprint’s technology. They paid almost $40 billion for Nextel, valued at $14 billion…I wish the Overland Park employees the best amid sharp job cuts.



Comments are closed.

  • Pages

    • About me: Jim Fitzpatrick
    • Contact
  • Archives

    • January 2023
    • December 2022
    • November 2022
    • October 2022
    • September 2022
    • August 2022
    • July 2022
    • June 2022
    • May 2022
    • April 2022
    • March 2022
    • February 2022
    • January 2022
    • December 2021
    • November 2021
    • October 2021
    • September 2021
    • August 2021
    • July 2021
    • June 2021
    • May 2021
    • April 2021
    • March 2021
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
    • December 2016
    • November 2016
    • October 2016
    • September 2016
    • August 2016
    • July 2016
    • June 2016
    • May 2016
    • April 2016
    • March 2016
    • February 2016
    • January 2016
    • December 2015
    • November 2015
    • October 2015
    • September 2015
    • August 2015
    • July 2015
    • June 2015
    • May 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • February 2015
    • January 2015
    • December 2014
    • November 2014
    • October 2014
    • September 2014
    • August 2014
    • July 2014
    • June 2014
    • May 2014
    • April 2014
    • March 2014
    • February 2014
    • January 2014
    • December 2013
    • November 2013
    • October 2013
    • September 2013
    • August 2013
    • July 2013
    • June 2013
    • May 2013
    • April 2013
    • March 2013
    • February 2013
    • January 2013
    • December 2012
    • November 2012
    • May 2012
    • April 2012
    • March 2012
    • February 2012
    • January 2012
    • December 2011
    • November 2011
    • October 2011
    • September 2011
    • August 2011
    • July 2011
    • June 2011
    • May 2011
    • April 2011
    • March 2011
    • February 2011
    • January 2011
    • December 2010
    • November 2010
    • October 2010
    • September 2010
    • August 2010
    • July 2010
    • June 2010
    • May 2010
    • April 2010
    • March 2010
  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 562 other subscribers

Blog at WordPress.com.

WPThemes.


  • Follow Following
    • JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC
    • Join 562 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Copy shortlink
    • Report this content
    • View post in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: