Bravo! Brands, the troubled vitamin-fortified and flavoured milk producer, has commenced an extensive restructuring programme which has already seen its workforce more than halved.
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Under the programme, Bravo!’s workforce has been reduced from 62 to 28. The 34 redundancies were made on 27 April, the company said, and included the release of chief marketing officer Stanley Harris
On 30 April, Bravo’s board voted to terminate the employment of Roy G. Warren, who had been the company’s CEO since 1999. However, Warren is to remain as a director. Michael Edwards, chief revenue officer, has also had his contract terminated, with effect from 1 May.
Bravo said the redundancies will reduce its total monthly payroll by more than 50%.
The company said that while cuts had been made across the board to sales personnel, executive and administrative positions, key personnel had been retained “to enable the company to move forward in implementing possible new distribution and production arrangements”.
“Recent events, including disappointing revenue growth and our stock trading price, have made our efforts to obtain adequate funding to continue at our present size difficult,” said chief operating officer Ben Patipa. “As a result, we must downsize. More important, however, this reduction in workforce is but a part of a larger plan to restructure our business in an effort to give us a better opportunity to move toward profitability.”
Having engaged Cowen and Company in April to assist in its efforts to explore strategic alternatives, the company also announced that on 1 May, 2007, it closed a funding transaction with six accredited institutional investors, for the issue and sale of 18.5m common shares for US$740,000.
The company also issued five-year warrants for the purchase of an additional 9.25m common shares at an exercise price of $0.04 per share.
