Lycos closes down: 500 employees lose their jobs
The European Internet portal Lycos is to be discontinued. As announced on Wednesday, the Executive Board and Supervisory Board of the Dutch company have decided to cease operations.
The European Internet portal Lycos is to be discontinued. As announced on Wednesday, the Executive Board and Supervisory Board of the Dutch company have decided to cease operations. The domain business, the shopping business and the Danish portal are to be sold. The unprofitable web hosting and portal business will be closed down completely. This means that 500 of the 700 employees will lose their jobs, 230 of them at the German subsidiary in Gütersloh.
The German media group Bertelsmann floated the company, which was originally jointly owned with the US company Lycos Inc, on the stock exchange in March 2000 and now holds a stake of around 32 percent, as does the Spanish company Telefonica.
Thanks to acquisitions, the company based in Haarlem in the Netherlands even briefly became Europe's leading Internet portal. However, Lycos Europe has not managed to earn enough money in all these years. In the first nine months of this year, a loss of 17.1 million euros was accumulated.
Lycos Europe was ultimately unable to assert itself against competition from search engine operators such as Google and Yahoo, Internet providers such as United Internet or networking sites such as Facebook. The company also struggled with falling advertising revenues and high costs.
Lycos is struggling with falling sales and is in the red: In the first 3 quarters of 2008, losses amounting to 17.1 million euros accumulated.
The German media group Bertelsmann floated the company, which was originally jointly owned with the US company Lycos Inc, on the stock exchange in March 2000 and now holds a stake of around 32 percent, as does the Spanish company Telefonica.
Thanks to acquisitions, the company based in Haarlem in the Netherlands even briefly became Europe's leading Internet portal. However, Lycos Europe has not managed to earn enough money in all these years. In the first nine months of this year, a loss of 17.1 million euros was accumulated.
Lycos Europe was ultimately unable to assert itself against competition from search engine operators such as Google and Yahoo, Internet providers such as United Internet or networking sites such as Facebook. The company also struggled with falling advertising revenues and high costs.
Lycos is struggling with falling sales and is in the red: In the first 3 quarters of 2008, losses amounting to 17.1 million euros accumulated.
