From the Houston Business Journal
Canada-based Enbridge Inc. (ticker: ENB) is terminating about 1,000 employees starting March 22.
The cuts represent about 6 percent of the company’s entire headcount, according to a statement from Enrbidge. The company has a significant presence in Houston, though it declined to break out the job cuts by location or group.
Al Monaco is the CEO of Enbridge Inc., while the former CEO of Spectra Energy Corp., Greg Ebel, is now the chairman of Enbridge’s board of directors.
Enbridge closed a massive merger with Spectra Energy Corp. on Feb. 27, creating a $126 billion combined company, according to Enbridge. The job cuts are a “difficult but necessary” step to deal with overlaps created by the merger.
Enbridge did not have to submit notification under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, and is fully compliant with that regulation, an Enbridge spokesman said. The WARN Act usually requires companies to give at least 60 days notice ahead of mass layoffs.
The cuts taking place on March 22 do not include senior leadership, which was already cut earlier in the year, an Enbridge spokesman said. There have already been a handful of former Spectra executives who have left their positions and are not joining an Enbridge company in any capacity.
The headcount reduction represents one component of the synergies the company is looking to capture after the merger.
“Obviously, there’s some workforce duplication when you do this kind of combination,” Enbridge CEO Al Monaco said earlier this month, before the cuts had been announced. “But remember there’s a number of other opportunities we have around non-people costs, and that’s what we’re going to be focused on.”
At the time, Monaco said the company was trying to “do the right thing” in terms of cutting jobs after the acquisition.
Enbridge has kept the Spectra MLP, Spectra Energy Partners LP (ticker: SEP), Enbridge Energy Partners LP (ticker: EEP) and Midcoast Energy Partners LP (ticker: MEP) separate and on the stock exchange, and Monaco said it intends to keep them that way.
“Spectra Energy Partners has been a great vehicle, and frankly we don’t want to mess around with it,” he said.
Despite that, the company’s Houston companies, many of which are currently based downtown, will move to the former headquarters of Spectra near the Galleria by the end of the year.
