Layoffs at Shakespeare, Pflueger, Penn 1/24/2008
Several sources have confirmed that deep personnel cuts occurred this week at Shakespeare headquarters in Columbia, S.C. The news was not confirmed by the company – BassFan is awaiting a call back from an official – but as many as 150 employees are believed to have been given notification of termination.
Shakespeare and brands Pflueger, Penn, All-Star, Stearns, and X-Tools are owned by K2, which was acquired early last year by Jarden Corp. A few weeks prior to that acquisition, Jarden also purchased Pure Fishing (parent company of Berkley, Fenwick, Abu Garcia, Stren and other brands).
Sources indicated that many of the layoffs were to eliminate redundancies between the K2 and Pure Fishing business segments.
Sources also confirmed that one of the employees who was let go was director of advertising and public relations Mark Davis.
It’s not known whether the Pflueger or All-Star pro staffs will be affected. The team includes heavy hitters like Mark Davis (no relation to the above-mentioned Davis), Tim Horton, Davy Hite, Clark Wendlandt, Brent Chapman, and others
No joke! There was a guy in my Mandarin Chinese class a few years back that worked for Shakespeare. He had to learn the language because the company would send him to China to market their products. Didn’t know the Chinese did much except use nets or throw string by hand. Anyway, I wonder what happened to him…