DocuSign to cut 6% of its workforce as part of restructuring plan
(Reuters) - DocuSign said on Tuesday it would reduce its current workforce by about 6%, or 400 employees, becoming the latest company to join the wave of layoffs across the tech industry.
The majority of the layoffs will be in the company's sales and marketing organizations, it said in a regulatory filing.
This comes a day after Reuters reported that Bain Capital and Hellman & Friedman — the private equity firms which were competing to buy DocuSign — stalled talks due to disagreements on how much they should pay to acquire the provider of electronic signature services.
Shares of DocuSign closed 8% lower on Monday after the news of the talks being stalled. The stock was trading down around 4% on Tuesday.
The company expects to incur charges of about $28 million to $32 million in connection with the restructuring plan, consisting primarily of cash expenditures for employee transition, notice and severance period.
DocuSign had 7,336 employees, as of Jan. 31, 2023, according to its last annual filing.
The company expects to incur the majority of the restructuring charges in the first quarter of fiscal 2025.
Other tech and media firms such as Amazon.com, Alphabet and Microsoft have also announced layoffs last month as firms grapple with economic uncertainty.
The Wall Street Journal had first reported in December that DocuSign was working with advisers to explore a sale.
DocuSign went public in 2018 with a valuation of $6 billion. It allows customers to sign documents digitally from any electronic device and counts firms such as T-Mobile and United Airlines among its clients.
(Reporting by Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
