The financial woes of Fast

August 30 2001

The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten reports that the Norwegian search engine company Fast Search & Transfer ASA will sack another 60 of its employees. Moreover, two more directors are leaving the leader team.

Member of the board Roberth Keith says to Aftenposten that "The job of the board is to increase the value for the stockholders." Our impression is that if that mean the loss of 60 employees, that's the way it goes. Earlier this year, Fast let go of another 30 workers.

Costs are to be reduced with some 1 to 1.5 million USD a month, the main reason being a significant deficit. Offices in th US, in Great Britain and in Norway will be closed; the company will be run from Boston and Oslo.

The Norwegian stock market is also loosing its faith in the company. The stocks dropped by 24 percent yesterday, according to Aftenposten.

Roberth Keith says to the Norwegian newspaper Dagens næringsliv that "Our income has increased by 18 percent in the worst quarter in the history of technology (...) Many companies has lost 99 percent of their market value since they reached the top. Fast has only fallen by some 98 percent, hence we are not members of the '99-club'" Some comfort!

There is also trouble in the upper stratum of the company. Espen Brodin left as leader one and a half year ago. Thomas Fussell, who together with Roberth Keith is one of the major stockholders in Opticom, the company behind Fast, called Brodin a lazy man.

Now the present leader Ron Fisher is leaving together with finance director Bob Beveridge. The main reason is apparently the need to streamline the company.

One may wonder if the board has considered the value of the competences that are leaving the company with these people. After all, companies like Fast rely on the knowledge, creativity and innovative capacity of its staff.

It would, however, be premature to prepare for a Fast funeral. Fast is going to launch a new and larger search engine database this fall, and does now deliver search engine results to practically all the Lycos websites around the world. It has also signed a contract with online auction firm eBay, and should be in a position to win an even larger share of the search engine market.

Fast will now focus on the products Web Search, Data Search and Site Search.

Fast develops new and larger search engine index (Pandia)
Fast lays off "idiots" (Pandia)
Fast kutter - ledelsen slutter (Dagens næringsliv)
Fast spiser sjefer til frokost (Aftenposten)
Fast company
All-the-web search engine

More search engine news...

The Pandia Post is our free bimonthly newsletter on Internet searching, search engines and directories.

We will give you the latest news from the world of Internet exploring, useful tips on how to improve your searching skills or search engine ranking, as well as information on the development of the Pandia Search Central.

We will never give your address to any other company or organization.