One month after Equifax Inc. announced it would restructure the firm into six businesses, the company said last week that it has completed that task and named a leader for its Marketing Services business. The company also said it is laying off staff and closing facilities in its e-mail marketing unit, which has been hit by spam legislation.
Equifax did not give details of the number of employees affected by the cutbacks but said it will eliminate bulk e-mail products. California's passage of an anti-spam law in September prompted its clients to cut back on e-mail marketing, the company said. It also said it is too early to tell what effect the new CAN-SPAM Act will have on e-mail.
John Healy will join the firm in January as group executive for the Marketing Services unit, which includes Atlanta-based Equifax's postal and electronic marketing products. Healy spent the past two years at DoubleClick Inc., New York, but prior to that he was senior vice president of Equifax Direct Marketing Solutions, formerly a division of R.L. Polk.
The other five business units are North America Information Services, led by Dann Adams; Latin America, headed by William R. Phinney; Europe, under Michael S. Shannon; Consumer Direct, led by Virgil P. Gardaya and Predictive Sciences headed by Paul J. Springman. These leaders all came from within Equifax.
All six executives report directly to Equifax chairman/CEO Thomas F. Chapman.
As part of the restructuring, Equifax chief operating officer Mark Miller departed to pursue other opportunities, and his position was eliminated, the firm said.
As a result of the restructuring, Equifax announced that fourth-quarter earnings would be down by 17 cents per share, or $23 million. The firm's Q4 ends Dec. 31.
