Study: Shareholder Returns Boosted With Layoffs

Those layoffs that your company has gone through recently certainly were tough, but new research shows that they should make your shareholders happier. According to a study by consultants Watson Wyatt, Washington, D.C., companies that successfully attained their financial goals through restructuring during the recession of the early 1990s provided significantly higher total returns to shareholders (TRS) over the next five years than companies whose restructuring efforts failed. Watson Wyatt recently analyzed the economic performance of 736 large companies it originally surveyed in 1993 that had restructured during the 1990s' recession, which has similarities to the country's most recent recession. Watson Wyatt analyzed five years of financial data for the companies that met their goals as demonstrated by an immediate boost to their bottom line and the companies that did not. The 30% of companies that successfully restructured achieved a 216% TRS from 1993 through 1997 compared with a 143% TRS over the same five-year period for the remaining 70% of companies.