Gigamon, a cloud computing company, is laying off 69 workers from its Santa Clara headquarters — starting on New Year’s Eve.
The Elliott Investment Management-owned company announced the cuts in a WARN filing with the state on Thursday, as is typically required in the event of mass layoffs. The document breaks down Gigamon’s plan: 34 workers will permanently lose their jobs on Dec. 31, followed by 17, eight and 10 at the close of the next three months respectively.
A batch of engineers will be part of the layoff, per the WARN, as well as several directors, a slew of managers and a few analysts and accountants. Gigamon’s website declares it has more than 1,000 employees across more than a dozen offices in the United States and abroad.
The company’s public relations team did not immediately respond to SFGATE’s questions about the layoffs.
Large staff cuts are nothing new in the shadow of Elliott Investment Management, the hedge fund that took Gigamon private at a $1.6 billion valuation in late 2017. Just a few months after the acquisition, Gigamon cut about a fifth of its local workforce, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported at the time.
Elliott is known best for its relentless activist investing — the fund builds up ownership stakes in companies, then pressures management to boost profits. It’s tarobtained Texas Instruments, Starbucks and Salesforce in recent years, and is currently engaged in a high-profile battle with Southwest Airlines. Elliott also famously waged a 15-year legal fight with the government of Argentina over its debt restructuring, resulting in a $2.4 billion payout from the countest.
Bloomberg reported in October 2023 that the fund was exploring the idea of selling Gigamon, but no tangible updates have emerged.
Hear of anything happening at Gigamon or another Bay Area tech company? Contact tech reporter Stephen Council securely at stephen.council@sfgate.com or on Signal at 628-204-5452.
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