Enterasys employment falls below 1,000

Enterasys Networks, the main successor to Cabletron Systems – once New Hampshire’s largest employer, with more than 7,000 employees — now has less than a thousand employees, according to quarterly report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

As of Oct. 1, the company employed 845 workers, 305 fewer than it had at the beginning of the year.

The company let go of the workers as part of a restructuring plan, which has cost the company $11.1 million so far this fiscal year, primarily for severance pay for the laid-off employees, according to the filing. The restructuring resulted in moving its headquarters to Andover, Mass., and closing the Rochester, N.H., facility in June. The company reported it had to take $5.5 million off its books because the facility’s fair market value – now estimated at $3.1 million – was less then cost estimates of acquisitions, improvements and depreciation that was on the books before.

The filing also said that the company incurred $3.2 million so far this year to indemnify current and former directors and former officers for legal costs associated with legal matters relating to overstating revenue.

While the filing did not specify individuals involved, the cost indemnification includes criminal defense of several former executives indicted for fraud, Enterasys’ Kevin Flanagan told NHBR Daily. – BOB SANDERS