BRIEFS:PANASONIC said it will lose almost $10 billion (€7.7bn) this business year as it cleans house of risky assets, writing down billions of dollars of goodwill and assets in its mobile and energy units while its new boss prepares for a fresh bout of restructuring.
Panasonic, founded in 1918, is heading for a fourth net loss in five years after forecasting a 765 billion yen (€7.4 billion) loss for the year to March, nearly matching a record net loss of 772 billion yen (€7.5) last business year. The result would boost its cumulative loss over five years to nearly $25 billion (€19.3 billion).
Kazuhiro Tsuga, who became Panasonic’s president this year, has promised a harsh revamp, to be unveiled by next March, that is expected to beat a path away from money-losing TVs and other consumer electronics.
Panasonic’s multibillion-dollar write-offs, including deferred tax assets, are a sign that Tsuga is already scaling back businesses that do not add to the bottom line as a weak global economy takes its toll.
“We believe we have removed everything that posed a writedown risk,” Panasonic’s chief financial officer Hideaki Kawai said yesterday in Tokyo.
Even after a 36,000 reduction in its workforce last year, Panasonic remains Japan’s largest corporate employer with 330,000 workers.
‘Internet Hero’ award for CoderDojo founder
CoderDojo founder James Whelton is to receive the Internet Hero award at tonight’s Eircom Spider Awards at the National Convention Centre, Dublin.
Every year, the Eircom Spider Awards presents the Internet Hero award to someone who has demonstrated outstanding success in the online industry. Whelton (20), is no stranger to the Spider awards, having won a Junior Spider Award in the Helix just two years ago.
Previous winners of the Internet Hero award include Ray Nolan, founder of Raven Computing; Dylan Collins, founder of Jolt Online Gaming and Colm Lyon of Realex.
It’s been a busy few weeks for Whelton; last month at the Web Summit he was awarded a fellowship by Ashoka a network of social entrepreneurs that includes Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales. Earlier last month he was also one of three winners to pick up a social entrepreneur Ireland award. Tonight’s Spider awards features 14 categories, ranging from financial services, travel tourism and hospitality through to retail excellence and social media interaction.
Integrity Solutions to recruit 25 staff for Ireland and UK
IRISH IT security specialist Integrity Solutions is to recruit 25 new employees by early 2013 in its Irish and UK offices. This will include 19 new employees in its Dublin headquarters and six in the UK, including new country managers for England and Scotland. Founded in 2005, the company currently employs 30 staff.
Integrity Solutions provides IT security solutions and services to private and public sector organisations and the firm says that an increase in demand for its managed security service is primarily driving growth in employee numbers and revenues. Integrity says it increased its revenues in 2011 by 27 per cent to €9.2 million and expects turnover to increase by more than 20 per cent to €11.2m in 2012. It secured 28 new clients in the first six months of this year.
Eoin Goulding, managing director, Integrity Solutions, said, “The IT security landscape is rapidly evolving as new threats emerge and organisations face stringent data regulations. Our proactive managed IT security service offers guaranteed real time levels of protection and is proving to be very popular in Ireland, and increasingly so in the UK. To ensure we are delivering the best possible service to our growing client base, we have decided to make this significant increase in employee numbers. We are in the process of recruiting some very talented people who will provide us with an even stronger managed service proposition in both Ireland and the UK.”
