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Bath-based Future Network Ltd has slashed 90 jobs from its publishing operation in Britain and a further 240 in the US and Europe.

In all some 350 jobs are to be lost from a total workforce of around 2000. Twenty magazines are to be scrapped and the outfit is to prune its online activities as well.

The company's flagship title for the ebusiness world, Business 2.0, may also be sold. The company has hired Morgan Stanley Dean Witter to look for a buyer or investor for the title.

According to a statement issued by Future, the job losses are designed to "streamline the company's portfolio, reduce operating costs, pay down debt and enhance profitability".

The magazines being ditched in the UK are: WAP, Digital Camera User, DCUK, Quick and Easy Windows, Your iMac, and Video Gamer.

Four Web sites are also be shut down. They are: mbuk.co.uk, sfx.co.uk, cross-stitch.com and totalfilm.co.uk.

The job losses are associated with all these titles and site plus some central services.

Last month Future issued a profits warning saying that the expected seasonal uplift in sales in the final months of 2000 failed to materialise. It expected sales for the year to be down three per cent to £253 million, down from an anticipated £260 million.

The outfit will publish its prelims for 2000 next month. ®

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