VoIP provider Engin has sacked 29 employees from its Frenchs Forest office in an effort to cut costs.

Two of the employees from the brand’s marketing team have been made redundant, including marketing manager Phil Dobbie and PR manager Will McIntyre, slashing at least two wages from its marketing budget.

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Engin went through a process of re-branding earlier this year, complete with a spruced-up marketing campaign including ads on buses.

The brand recently spruced up its marketing spend with a company re-branding which saw advertising placed in major metropolitan newspapers, online and on buses. The marketing team also put together a Facebook page for the brand’s new spokesperson – a blue, round cartoon-man called Engin.

Neither Engin nor its outsourced PR company will comment on the reason for the cost-cutting, besides distributing the following statement:

“Engin has realigned its workforce to better meet its objectives of achieving profitability in the short term. A small number of staff in marketing and management roles were made redundant as a result of this action, but core functions remain well staffed to achieve our goals,” said managing director at Howorth Communications, Graham White.

The publicly-listed company has not made an announcement to its shareholders regarding the cuts, which could mean no redundancies were made at executive level.

The company is currently indebted to Seven Network Group which bought a 33 per cent stake in Engin earlier this year and also financed Engin’s recent acquisition of wireless internet provider, Unwired.

On Friday Engin made an announcement that it has accepted an offer of $25.1 million by Network Investment Holdings to takeover all the ordinary shares in the Unwired Group held by Engin

It is possible that Engin could have re-sold Unwired because it couldn’t afford its debt of $21.1 million to the Seven Network.
The brand was on the cusp of launching a three-pronged business plan including VoIP, internet access and TiVO pay TV boxes.