Bermuda-based electronic payment company Promisant announced last night it had fired 11 workers on the Island and 13 in Europe, Latin America and North America.
Less than a year ago, Bermudian founder Peter Durhager was promising the company, which specialises in electronic payment processes, would make as much as $4 billion within three years.
The company put a positive spin on the redundancies yesterday, saying they were due to it moving away from a traditional direct sales force towards industry-specific partnerships across the globe, which it said would present tremendous opportunities.
In a statement issued last night, Promisant said its actions were "reflective of a more conservative approach broadly adopted by many venture-backed companies in light of the current tumultuous market conditions''.
The Internet payment processing company was set up last year by the Bank of NT Butterfield and Bermuda-based e-commerce provider Coral Capital Limited, where Mr. Durhager is CEO.
Promisant said it was now capitalising on the sales and marketing forces of established partners in Europe, Latin American and North America to maximise yield.
This would result in a total of 24 job losses, including 11 in Bermuda.
Chairman and CEO Juan Prado said the company had set up an "out-placement'' resource centre to help the redundant staff find new work.
"Promisant will be capitalising on a number of key strategic industry-specific relationships the company has been developing over the past year,'' says Mr. Prado.
"This will allow Promisant to focus exclusively on delivering customised niche payment solutions to large global sectors such as travel and transportation, business-to-business purchasing, e-logistics and mobile telcos.
"This is a strategic move in response to market conditions. Our goal as a company has always been to be pro-active and to offer payment solutions that mirror exactly the needs of our customers.
"I regret that as a direct result of this realignment we are having to make good people redundant.
"Letting these highly-skilled professional people go has been one of the toughest decisions we've had to make.
Electronic payments company fires 11 Bermuda workers "However, to grow as a business we must move as the markets move. Working closely with major companies with already well-established sales and marketing organisations represents a huge opportunity for us.
"As those businesses that are closely involved with Promisant know, we have hand-picked the best people. A number of staff have already been offered positions in other companies here on-Island.'' He added: "We have prioritised our product development for the next 6-12 months around specific, known opportunities and extended our funding horizon into 2002.
"On market conditions such as the ones we're experiencing, focus, conservative capital management and discipline in execution are the key to longevity.''
