Good riddance
 

Starbucks to cut up to 12,000 jobs, close 600 stores

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O) said on Tuesday it plans to close another 500 underperforming stores and eliminate as many as 12,000 full- and part-time positions, lifting shares nearly 6 percent.

The company, which now plans to close a total of 600 underperforming stores versus its previous estimate of 100, said the majority of the stores will be closed by the end of March 2009.

Starbucks estimated that total pretax charges associated with the planned U.S. company-operated store closures, including costs associated with severance, would be in the range of $328 million to $348 million.

The nation's largest coffee chain said 70 percent of the stores targeted for closure have been open since the beginning of fiscal 2006. The job losses would represent about 7 percent of the company's global work force.

The company aggressively opened stores in areas such as California and Florida, which have been hardest hit by the U.S. housing downturn. Some investors have pushed the company to increase the number of store closures.

Starbucks also said it will open fewer than 200 new U.S. company-operated stores in fiscal 2009, down from 250 previously.

The stock rose to $16.53 in late electronic trading, up 5.8 percent from its close of $15.62 on Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080701/bs_nm/starbucks_dc

I heard they were going to adopt a less aggresssive marketing strategy of only having one starbucks per street corner instead of the more common two.
Hopefully they'll take it a step farther and limit the number of starbucks stores in the grocery stores to one per aisle.

I better find one and see what they're like before they're all gone, I the closest one is at least 100 miles away.
Jim

The guy who runs the caffeine desk is going ballistic. No one got his sign off before they pulled the plug. Heads are going to roll.

I don't get this one. What is good about a major company cutting jobs and closing stores. Now, if it were some personal injury law firms, that'd be one thing. But I like Starbuck's a lot. I don't go but about once every six weeks or so, but when I need it, it sure does it nice to have.

Starbucks is the poster child for many of the things wrong with America today IMO.

I wish they would all go bye-bye.

Two of our office's biggest clients are DIRECT competitors to SBUX. Obviously this is very good news for them and hopefully (by extension) us.

The downside of that news is that if SBUX is seeing a soft market, our clients might also be seeing the same soft markets (although one is hedged pretty well, with their core business being in *ahem* "other" areas with the coffee being a side/opportunistic venture).

Personal injury claims go up when the economy goes sour.

Being mad at Starbucks for America's excesses is kind of like getting mad at Kleenex because you have a cold. It confuses cause and effect.

LOL!

And yes I have been to cities where they had Starbucks across the street from each other.

And yes I like a cup of Starbucks now and then (however I can make a better cup at home for less).

I just don't get the "I hate Starbucks" hype it is just a business providing a service, OK so they overextended themselfs a little bit but what is the big deal?

They drank the housing bubble Kool-Aid. I have no sympathy.

The article even specifically says they overbuilt in bubbly areas and are attributing a lot of the declines/underperformance to the housing collapse.

Idiots.

I am not mad at starbucks, i just see it as a symbol for many of our ills.

Forgive me for chuckling at their partial demise.

I wonder what the impact will be on the dairy industry. Starbucks is the largest purchaser of milk in the US.

Methinks you guys are a little premature with the funeral arrangements.

I know I'm likely to regret this but......could you please expand on your rationale for this conclusion? I don't necessarily disagree, but just wonder how a successful, international, high-growth company might get on a registered Conservative's S-H-I-T list.

Great! More corn can go to our government's brilliant "solution" to our energy needs - E85 ethanol!

You know, the whole drive to the local Starbucks and biitch to your green peace leftist (or just trendy) buddies about how climate change is going to destroy mother earth as ya slug down $5.00 cups of coffee that ya could make at home for 1/10th the cost, also saving the fuel you used to drive your $30,000 "economical" hybrid there to begin with. All the while biitching about big business and the evil of corporate america while also simultaneously lining their very pockets with ridiculous profit margins to pay for a CEO's massive salary.

Starbucks just personifies many of the things in today's society that really, really, really piss me off.

Spent a lot of time hanging out at starbucks have we?

4.2 seconds.

Conservatives drink Maxwell House black, and eat their steaks rare. They like Ricardo Montalban and GWB.

Lattes are for the liberal Perrier and salad crowd. The ones with no moral compass.