"Like a sinking ship": Inside Finder's latest redundancy round

Comparison platform Finder made 60 employees redundant on Wednesday morning. This is the fourth round of redundancies for the startup since April 2023.

According to sources close to the matter, the news was delivered to employees via a global all-hands meeting that lasted around 10 minutes. They were told that the business had tried various cost-cutting measures to right the ship, but they haven’t worked and that Finder can’t afford to sustain the current ‘crew’ while still growing the business.

The job cuts were made in Australia and globally, including roles across the editorial and publishing teams. SmartCompany understands the company will no longer have a head of editorial.

At the present time, the editorial team publishes comparison pages and articles across topics such as credit cards, insurance, telecommunications and more.

Staff were told that if their jobs were affected they would receive an email within 15 minutes of the call ending. An announcement naming those affected is expected to be sent to employees on Friday.

Over the past 12 months, there have been four separate redundancies rounds at Finder, affecting roughly 175 jobs. This included a smaller round late last year that included staff on parental leave. There was also a large redundancy round in the first quarter of 2023.

Finder confirmed this morning’s redundancies with SmartCompany earlier today, stating that the layoffs will affect 17% of its global workforce. This follows the over 23% reduction in the workforce across 2023. This is a stark contrast to 2021 when the company had over 500 employees globally.

“Finder has taken this difficult, but prudent decision to restructure its operations to streamline business operations and right-size its expense base to suit current market conditions,” a Finder spokesperson said in a text message.

According to the spokesperson, there is currently a consultation process underway to see if there are potential redeployment opportunities. They also made assurances that Finder won’t be cutting corners when it comes to compliance despite the reduced workforce.

“Our immediate priority as a company is very much to support impacted crew. We will continue to do everything we can – including career, wellbeing and financial support – to help anyone who may leave Finder to thrive in what comes next,” the spokesperson said.

Possibly not as sudden as it seems

While today’s announcement was reportedly unexpected, it’s possible that another round of cuts had been in the works for some time.

According to sources, there were rumours circulating within Finder that there was a possibility of reducing the editorial team to just those who also do media appearances on behalf of the company. Finder declined to comment on this.

“We remain firmly focused on the future growth of the comparison business in our core markets,” the spokesperson said.

Finder co-CEO (Global) and co-founder Frank Restuccia was said to have been crying during the call. According to a source, there was stunned silence during this part of the all-hands.

“I’ve never seen him like that before,” a source said to SmartCompany on condition of anonymity.

Other sources commented on the experience of going through multiple redundancy rounds.

“There’s a certain numbness to it now, going through it that many times,” a source said.

According to some remaining employees, the morale across the business has been “dreadful”.

“It just seems like a sinking ship,” one employee said.

Two years of redundancies, crypto crashed and ASIC lawsuits for Finder

This latest round of redundancies follows a difficult two years for Finder. In addition to mass job cuts, Finder was affected by the significant downturn in the cryptocurrency market towards the end of 2021.

Finder co-founder Fred Schebesta has been publicly bullish on cryptocurrency for years, and Finder itself has dedicated cryptocurrency-related pages and also ran a charity NFT project to raise money for the war in Ukraine in 2022.

Separately, Schebesta and Restuccia cofounded HiveEX, a cryptocurrency exchange in 2018, which operated under Hive Empire Trading Pty Ltd.

Further problems arose for the business when the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) brought civil proceedings against a branch of the company in late 2022.

The corporate watchdog alleged that Finder Wallet Pty Ltd — a subsidiary of the business — was offering customers its Finder Earn product without holding an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL).

Finder Earn was launched in 2021, offering users annual returns of 4.01% on cryptocurrency assets lodged in the app. At one point during its lifespan, it sat at 6.01%.

ASIC is also alleging that Finder Earn was operated as a debenture, which requires the issuance of a target market declaration, as well as disclosure with the regulator. According to ASIC, Finder Wallet Pty Ltd did not provide either.

This lawsuit was filed just days after Finder CEO Frank Restuccia defended Finder Earn after being questioned about sunsetting the product in an interview with SmartCompany. Restuccia said that when it came to legal safeguards, Finder was “always on the front foot”.

Tegan Jones previously worked at Finder.

Do you know more about this story? Email us at news@smartcompany.com.au.