Article Excerpt:
TWST: Would you begin with a brief historical sketch of Cineplex Galaxy Income Fund and a picture of the company at the present time?Mr. Jacob: We have had a lot go on for us in the last 12 months. We acquired our major competitor in Canada, Famous Players, which doubled the size of our company. We announced the transaction in June and, 36 days later, we closed the transaction. We had informed every employee as to their status in the organization, whether they were going to stay with us, were a transitional person or would be terminated. By December 2005, we had merged the head offices of both companies. So we tried to work quickly to get everybody under the same roof as part of one new team. It's coming along quite well and we told the Street that we would see close to $20 million in synergies as a result of the acquisition, and we gave ourselves a one-year target. Subsequent to that, we have changed the target to $25 million and we have changed the timing so that we should be at that level by the start of the second quarter of this year.
TWST: Has there been a reduced headcount?
Mr. Jacob: Yes, we reduced about 35% of the head office headcount of the
combined company.
Tickers included in this excerpt: CGX:TSX
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