Terra strikes fear into staff with job cull strategy

NEWS Chairman Joaquim Agut said that by the end of the merger, he expected staff numbers to be down by 15 per cent. The company could not give exact numbers for job losses but said it had around 3,200 staff worldwide today. The company reported that first quarter turnover was six per cent down on the previous quarter at $164m. But operating losses dropped 43 per cent to $67.2m. Terra threw in another write-off to bring total losses to $154m for the quarter. Terra Lycos is the third largest net operator in the world and claims just under 100 million registered users worldwide, with a 15 per cent increase in subscribers to seven million, 4.5 million of those being in Latin America. Its shares rose three per cent in Madrid in early morning trading to just over E10 (£6.20).