SpinVox puts spin on layoff rumours

Exclusive SpinVox insiders say the controversial voice-to-text company has made layoffs at its Marlow office today.

Brunswick, SpinVox's PR company, told us that SpinVox had an ongoing program of cost-reduction but declined to characterise it as a round of redundancies.

SpinVox's debt problems were widely discussed in press reports over the summer. The BBC reported that the company's refinancing came just in time to prevent key suppliers bringing the business to a halt.

In August, we exclusively revealed that the refinancing deal obliged SpinVox to find £30m to repay key backer Tisbury Master Fund Ltd by December 20, or refinance again. Hedge fund Tisbury was the only investor to respond to SpinVox's summer crisis. Tisbury Capital Management chairman John Botts also chairs SpinVox.

Since then, in September, the company has made another share issue of around £5m. An existing investor reported that SpinVox was up for sale.

SpinVox sells a voice-to-text service to carriers worldwide, and wholesales its translation to other services. The spotlight fell on the business when it emerged that the bulk of the work of its voice-to-text was conducted by humans in a labour-intensive network of contracted call centres around the world, employing thousands of people. ®