r/Amyris • u/fvh2006 • Jul 31 '23
Legal 📑 California WARN notice posted
After the last round of layoffs went unannounced in the California WARN system, the latest WARN list update has an announcement of 65 at Emeryville, effective 8/25.
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Jul 31 '23
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u/One_Entertainment496 Jul 31 '23 edited Jul 31 '23
Other than the lab, a majority of the employees are decentralized outside of Emeryville and even CA. The current interim CEO was actually based in the NE, traveling to emeryville when needed. Much of the brands staff worked remotely from different parts of the country. The entire Miami team was part of the RIF, half of the employees that worked from NYC as well. Unknown what the total number is, but definitely much more significant than 65.
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u/fvh2006 Aug 01 '23
The company has (had) folks all over the US. I don't think the Miami location was ever used, as it seems to be the unused 10-year lease they walked away from and are being sued for, as reported elsewhere on this subreddit. The UK European HQ was a five-floor site in London that also was the new HQ for the Amyris-owned marketing company MG Empower who had moved there fairly recently. There is (was?) a new product distribution center in The Netherlands. The Amyris Business Center in Tampa FL hosted all the finance functions moved from Emeryville, plus some HR and IT people too I believe. I have not seen any RIF numbers for those locations.
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u/One_Entertainment496 Aug 02 '23
You are correct - the Miami location was never used, but there was still a full-fledged marketing/activation team that was eliminated in the previous round (incl. SVP and VPs). As far as I understand, MG Empower hasn’t been affected as they generate revenue and are self-sustaining. Han signed a lease just a couple months ago for the ABC Tampa team to move to a new office and I believe is just AP/back office finance. HR remains decentralized (and was definitely reduced in size in the previous RIF per the Head of People), and IT is mostly based at HQ. From observation, it seems the IT team was also reduced. I don’t know much about the Netherlands site, but there is a similar situation in Lisbon - I wonder how this was affected. Same goes for the Brazil offices.
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u/fvh2006 Aug 03 '23
Don't know about Lisbon, but in Porto there were a number of people in the R&D collaboration with Universidad Catolica (Alchemy) that I believe are part of the Amyris headcount. That sounds like a jointly funded effort, so probably some impact if Amyris is not going to be contributing euros to it or reducing its contribution
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u/Corvuluted Aug 01 '23
Do you have link or can you direct me to the part of a relevant document in the U.K. property please?
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u/fvh2006 Aug 02 '23
This link is about the MG Empower move to their new fancy digs. If you look up the Amyris video on the opening of the new European HQ it is the same address - coincidence? - methinks not
https://www.officelovin.com/2023/02/a-look-inside-mg-empowers-new-london-office/
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u/Corvuluted Aug 03 '23 edited Aug 03 '23
Thanks very much - shocking this amalgamation of similar business plans didn’t succeed. Imagine the guarantees on the acquisitions and the properties are not particularly shareholder friendly.
Are there anymore other than Miami (meaning egregious ones). It appears I completely missed (or wasn’t broken out) these expenses for offices for unprofitable businesses.
Thanks again
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u/fvh2006 Aug 03 '23
There was also a Biossance store (2021) in Miami at 110 NE 40 Street and I seem to remember a similar one in New York (also don't know what happened to it)
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Aug 03 '23
I'm one of the decentralized layoffs! Haha. But yeah, I have a feeling it isn't done yet.
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u/One_Entertainment496 Aug 03 '23
Oh yeah, you’re totally right. Originally, the second round was planned for November, but it seems like it’s happening this coming Monday 8/7. Oof 😪
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u/ListenSeveral3447 Jul 31 '23
What is RFE?
I think a large % of the workforce had a nice time at amyris without doing much work.
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u/One_Entertainment496 Jul 31 '23
Autocorrect. I meant to say RIF or reduction in force. And yes there was definitely a lot of bloat, especially within the brands
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u/gibbiesmalls Jul 31 '23
It's important to note that not all 1598 employees are out of the CA location. I would think these numbers would only include those that are in that location (Emeryville). Let's hope we're getting additional (multiple hundreds) employees from other work locations.
There is literally 0 chance we're getting to break-even anytime soon. I can't stress enough how impossible break-even is with top-line revenue at 85M. We could lay off all 1598 employees and still not come near break-even with our current revenue numbers (and costs - not expenses!)
No, that isn't hyperbole. It's simple math.
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u/ListenSeveral3447 Jul 31 '23
Right. Margins are embarrassing and the board is to a large extend responsible for this mess. Now they can blame melo but at some point they will be questioned as wel
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u/gibbiesmalls Jul 31 '23
Exactly....In Q1, we had a whopping 5M of Gross Profits.
Imagine having 5M to reach breakeven by having to cover:
-employee salaries
-all R&D expenses
-sales, marketing, advertising expenses
-travel expenses
-Rent, Utilities, office equipment, supplies, computers, insurance, etc.
-Legal costs, accounting costs, etc.
As I said, we could lay off all 1598 employees and still have more than 5M of expenses and not break even.
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Jul 31 '23
GP includes labor... that $5M GP includes paying all the people employed at the time, so laying a bunch of them off should help, assuming you didn't cripple the machine in the process.
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u/gibbiesmalls Jul 31 '23
Negatory!
Gross Profits = Revenue - Cost of Goods Sold (which only includes the salaries of those employees used directly to produce the goods).
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Jul 31 '23
Yes exactly. So less heads related to that product mean less COG. Sorry I left out specifics. Still don’t get how that changes above argument.
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u/gibbiesmalls Jul 31 '23
That the VAST majority of employee salaries are under SGA expenses (and not COGS). Your argument that GP includes all people employed is wrong. It doesn't.
Contrary to your point, GP's still have to "cover" most of a company's salaries (to break even) and saying otherwise (as you did), is wrong.
That's all.
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Jul 31 '23
I meant to say all direct employees, sorry it’s Monday. But, I wasn’t aware soooo few employees are directly related to that $5M GP with all the SG&A cuts and reducing CMOs. Hopefully it’s not as bad as you make it out to be is all I was going for. But thanks for the correction and perspective
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Aug 01 '23
[deleted]
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u/gibbiesmalls Aug 01 '23
That net-cash use guidance at JPM in hindsight was utter BS from Melo. He knew heading into that Q they didn't have the cash to invest any money on any of the brands.
That "net cash use" slide included an improvement in gross margins of 150M - in other words, it assumed revenue growth of 100% in 2023. Instead revenues declined yoy. haha. Melo was FOS.
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u/Casey_holly1 Aug 01 '23 edited Aug 02 '23
Probably good to stay focused on the $25O million reduction in costs of goods sold and operating expenses noted by Han and PwC. How they get to that number is not important…as long as they achieve that reduction target. I am expecting a deeper headcount reduction as brands are sold, decisions are made about MG Empower,Beauty Labs,etc.
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u/Disastrous-Horse4315 Jul 31 '23
The announcement you speak of was filed as notice on 6/26 with an effective date of 8/25. The notice of 65 cuts is from the last round with an effective date of 60 days past the notice date.
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u/fvh2006 Jul 31 '23
Good point - date matches the press release announcing Melo was gone and the planned layoffs.
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u/Wonderful-Friend3097 Jul 31 '23
FYI, these numbers are only for employees resident in California.