Seagate Technology

Seagate Technology is cutting 2,950 more jobs and slashing some employees' salaries as much as 25%, a surprise move coming just two days after Seagate changed chief executives and announced it was cutting 800 U.S. workers.

Western Digital Corp. won European Union approval for its purchase of Hitachi Ltd.'s Viviti storage business after it agreed to sell off some disk drive production to eliminate antitrust concerns. Western Digital has agreed to sell "essential production assets" for 3.5-inch hard disk drives, including a production plant and intellectual property rights linked to the business, the European Commission said Wednesday. "Hard disk drives are a key component of computers and other sophisticated electronic devices as they are used to store a growing bulk of data in the digital economy," EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in the statement.

Seagate Technology Holdings, a disk drive maker that recently held an initial public offering, said its profit rose in the second quarter of fiscal 2003 from a year earlier. Seagate, based in Scotts Valley, Calif., said its income rose to $198 million, or 43 cents a share, from $124 million, or 31 cents, a year earlier. Revenue rose 6% to $1.73 billion. Shares of Seagate rose 40 cents to $12.60 on the NYSE.

Western Digital Corp. said it received an antitrust complaint from European Union regulators over its purchase of Hitachi Ltd.'s storage business. "The statement of objections sets out the European Commission's preliminary assessment regarding the combination" and "its potential effects on competition," Western Digital, based in Irvine, said in a regulatory filing Friday. It didn't give details of the EU's complaint. The commission in May opened in-depth probes into Western Digital's transaction as well as Seagate Technology's separate plan to buy Samsung Electronics Co.'s computer hard-disk drive operations.

NMB (USA) in Chatsworth has finished buying the composite recording head division of Seagate Technology, a maker of disk drives based in Scotts Valley, Calif., for an undisclosed amount. NMB is a subsidiary of Minebea Co. Ltd. of Tokyo, a high-technology conglomerate.

Driven by increasing demand for computer memory products, Seagate Technology Inc. said Monday that it will make a major investment in robotic manufacturing equipment at its Anaheim plant. A spokesman for the Scotts Valley, Calif., company declined to say how much the company would invest in the 274-employee plant. Up to 25 new jobs could be added over the next three years as a result of the new investment, the spokesman said.

Silver Lake Partners, Texas Pacific Group and other buyout firms that are the largest shareholders of Seagate Technology Inc. cut their stake in the company Thursday by 13.7%, selling $1.12 billion worth of shares. The firms sold as many as 60 million shares in Seagate at $18.75 each. The stock closed Thursday at $18.93, down 57 cents, in New York Stock Exchange trading. The group invested $1.1 billion in Seagate -- which is based in the Cayman Islands and run from Scotts Valley, Calif.

Seagate Technology Inc., a leading maker of computer disk drives, said Tuesday it intends to leave the Nasdaq stock market and have its shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Seagate's departure from Nasdaq comes as the nation's second-largest stock market is facing intense scrutiny by the government over dealer trading practices.

Seagate Technology, one of the largest makers of hard disk drives in the world, said Friday that 1,000 employees will be laid off in response to overproduction throughout the industry. The layoffs will be spread throughout the company--including a plant in Anaheim--and reduce Seagate's domestic work force by 20%. Employees were notified of the layoffs Friday morning, according to Robb Kundtz, vice president of administration at Seagate, which is headquartered in Scotts Valley, Calif.

Calvin L. Reed has been appointed vice president, domestic manufacturing of Seagate Technology, Scotts Valley.

Seagate Technology, the disk-drive maker that ended takeover talks with TPG Capital, also turned down a proposal from competitor Western Digital Corp., according to two people with knowledge of the matter. A combination with Western Digital would have faced antitrust obstacles and may have resulted in management departures, said the people, who declined to be identified because the talks were private. Western Digital indicated to Seagate it was willing to pay 10% to 50% more than TPG, one person said.

Seagate Technology is cutting 2,950 more jobs and slashing some employees' salaries as much as 25%, a surprise move coming just two days after Seagate changed chief executives and announced it was cutting 800 U.S. workers.

Seagate Technology has replaced its top two executives and said it planned to cut 800 jobs as the hard-drive maker endures a bruising slowdown in technology spending. In a surprise move, the Scotts Valley, Calif., company announced Monday that William Watkins, Seagate's chief executive since 2004, and Dave Wickersham, the president and chief operating officer, had both left the company, effective immediately. The company also announced that it planned to cut 10% of its 8,000 U.S.-based workers.

Western Digital Corp. said fiscal third-quarter profit more than doubled on surging sales of high-capacity drives for notebook computers. Net income for the quarter that ended March 28 climbed to $280 million, or $1.23 a share, from $121 million, or 53 cents, a year earlier, the Lake Forest-based company said. Sales rose 50% to $2.11 billion, beating analysts' estimates. Western Digital introduced notebook drives with capacities as large as 320 gigabytes in October, beating Seagate Technology, which plans to introduce similar products widely in June.

Hard-drive maker Seagate Technology's fiscal second-quarter earnings nearly tripled as shipments rose 20% year over year. Seagate Chief Executive Bill Watkins said that the company couldn't meet demand in every segment of its business during the quarter and predicted that the industry, which supplies storage components in computers, game consoles, digital video recorders and other devices, would continue to see robust demand. For the quarter ended Dec. 28, the world's largest drive maker earned $403 million, or 73 cents a share, up 188% from $140 million, or 23 cents, in a year earlier.

Seagate Technology has agreed to reimburse potentially millions of customers and pay as much as $1.79 million in plaintiffs' attorney fees to settle a lawsuit accusing the world's largest maker of hard drives of overstating the data storage capacity of those devices, court records show. The Scotts Valley, Calif.-based company will refund 5% of the purchase price to people who bought Seagate hard drives in the United States from March 22, 2001, to Dec.

Sony/ATV Music Publishing said it bought the catalog of award-winning songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, including such hits as "Hound Dog" and "Jailhouse Rock." Terms were not disclosed, although the catalog is valued at about $50 million, industry executives said. Seagate Technology said its fiscal third-quarter profit fell 22% because of a tough pricing environment, slower-than-expected demand and acquisition costs.

It pulled in more than $9 billion in revenue last fiscal year and supplies the hard drives that sit inside one-third of the world's personal computers. But Seagate Technology Inc. longs for a little recognition. Tired of being a faceless supplier of parts for PCs and other electronic devices, Seagate is trying to worm its way into the consumer consciousness with a new attitude and fresh line of retail products. For years, the company prided itself on not spending a dime on industrial design.