We heard on Friday that Palm was laying off as many of 200 people Worldwide and that Palm may be closing some international offices in Europe and Asia as well. Last Wednesday, Palm Infocenter had reported that Palm's stock price dropped another 21% that day to close a 1.76. Ugh, that's really low.
Jim Goldman of CNBC has written an article and says that those following Palm's problems weren't very surprised when they heard on Friday about the layoffs coming at Palm, especially since there have been layoffs in other Silicon Valley businesses in the past few weeks.
Goldman said that investors might actually notice the fact that Global Crown Capital's Pablo Perez-Frernadez not only downgraded Palm shares to a "Sell", but he also suggested that Palm's single biggest investor, Elevation Partners, might be looking to unload its stake in Palm. Goldman said that if true, that could be the end of Palm.
According to the article, Perez-Fernandez chides Palm's strategy to pay a one-time, $900 million dividend to engineer Elevation's 25% stake for $325 million, saying that it made no sense then and still doesn't today, given Palm's current financial situation.
You can read the full article here.
I've still got my fingers crossed that Palm's new platform will breathe new life into their finances.