As a result of turbulent times in the toy industry, Hasbro is apparenty considering cutting a single-digit percentage of its global workforce (which currently amounts to 5,000 jobs).

On top of that, there's a lawsuit against Hasbro bigwigs for potential securities fraud.

Hasbro: 'Difficult' changes in progress; won't confirm layoffs - News - providencejournal.com - Providence, RI
Amid reports of layoffs, Hasbro confirms 'difficult changes'
GoLocalProv | News | Hasbro Makes Staff Cuts—Potential Investor Lawsuit Looms

 

Layoffs
Stay off
Turn off
Those are the first things that come to mind that rhyme

 

The executives took a payoff
They avoided the layoff
Then stuffed millions into their underwear
And took a much-deserved day off

 

This is what happens when a company spends hundreds of millions of dollars on a single movie franchise license and then loses over a billion in toy sales in one year when the movie franchise implodes faster than Jar Jar on the Speed Force. That's why they are being so conservative with the Transformers right now. I wish people would remember that when they start blathering on about "why doesn't Hasbro do X, Y or Z? I'm tired of A, B and C. Stop making money and do what I demand".

The corruption bit? That's typical for a business that is in their position to have executive leeches trying to feather their own nests on the way out. The company hasn't been the same since Stephen died.

They'll be bought out within two years. Paramount or Disney. Paramount is desperate for a new franchise opportunity since Turtles isn't as lucrative as they'd hoped and Star Trek is chasing SW down the drain. If Bumblebee does well, they'll bite. If it doesn't, Disney will buy it all for the IPs.

 

God Peyton is obsessed with pretending he has insider foresight isn't he?

 

*sigh*

 

Maybe its all of those star wars toys they can't sell

 

Actually, that's part of it.

The fact is that TRU dealt Hasbro a mighty blow in sales and a partially unpaid bill.

Hasbro promised investors that they would rebound from the TRU implosion but Solo toys fell flat, coupled with a non-TF movie last year and NERF sales probably feeling a pinch for the first time in a awhile. That has investors feeling jittery and Hasbro decided they had to make a sacrifice somewhere to appease the money gods.

No idea on the security fraud thing, though. That's a situation that doesn't really impact the company as a whole (executives can be replaced) but can give investors EXTRA jitters...

 

Something they should actually DO, (Hasbro) Playoffs!
 


(Btw, what they're actually doing does not sound good! )

 

  thanks, that's awesome! (I love it!)

 

Instead of blabbering "Stop doing what other people want and do what I want all the time again." which just happens to be what is safe.

 

@Nevermore The articles say it will only affect a single digit percentage of the 5000 global workforce employees, so it's like between 50 and 500, but not all 5000 employees.

 

Rest in pastrami, Hasblow.

As for growth, I guess that, for this year's growth, the Hasbro's execs were way off.

 

The layoffs are disappointing to hear but the securities fraud... The link above didn't work so I found this (EQUITY ALERT: Rosen Law Firm Announces Filing of Securities Class Action Lawsuit Against Hasbro, Inc. – HAS) instead. Hilariously, the lawsuit is about Hasbro and their relationship with TRU.

 

So, basically, Hasbro was playing down the severity of their sales downturn, according to the lawsuit. (They may not have - these are just allegations.)

Okay, so when Hasbro does their investor conference calls that get reported here, there's sometimes accusations by a vocal minority that Hasbro lies. This is essentially confirmation that:

1. Hasbro most likely DOES NOT LIE because investors can file lawsuits against them if they get caught. I'd say this probably holds true 96% of the time.

2. There appears one case in which THEY MIGHT HAVE LIED because some investors ARE filing a lawsuit in regards to lying about TRU sales and international market growth. Unfortunately...

3. This only helps the case for doubters because if Hasbro is proved to have lied once, who is to say they haven't fudged their numbers before in the past? (In this case, I refer to my first point but this whole debacle now casts at least a small shadow of doubt on past and future conference calls.)

 

Bay Hoff

 

Madoff

 

Jim Mora... The gift that keeps on giving. I swear, that never gets old.  

 

Yup. Typically these kinds of cases are dropped so Hasbro is probably in the clear regardless of whether they mislead or not.