Pulte to slash work force by 16%

Nation's fourth-largest homebuilder to take up to $50 million pretax charge in restructuring.


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Pulte Homes, the nation's fourth-largest homebuilder, announced a restructuring plan Tuesday, saying it plans to further trim its work force by 16 percent.

The Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based homebuilder said it would also take a pretax charge between $40 million and $50 million.

Pulte said the new plan was designed to reduce costs and improve operating efficiencies.

"The homebuilding environment remains difficult and our current overhead levels are structured for a business that is larger than the market presently allows," Richard J. Dugas, Jr., the company's president and CEO said in a statement.

"Despite reducing our work force by approximately 25 percent in 2006 and early 2007, we find it necessary at this time to further reduce overhead expenditures, including, unfortunately, reducing an additional sixteen percent of our jobs," he added.

Homebuilder stocks been particularly hard hit lately as the once red-hot housing market has turned sour. Late last month, Pulte posted a loss, while rival D.R. Horton (Charts, Fortune 500) reported a 37 percent drop in the number of new homes sold in the latest quarter.

Pulte (Charts, Fortune 500) shares climbed in after-hours trading Tuesday after edging lower during regular trade on the New York Stock Exchange. Top of page

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.