(The Industry Standard)

With the $47 million merger of the two largest women-oriented sites completed on Monday, iVillage and Women.com announced on Thursday evening what they say will be their last round of layoffs.

IVillage says it plans to slash 150 employees, more than 40 percent of the newly combined company's staff of 350. Last night's action follows on the heels of cuts at Women.com that totaled some 70 of Women.com's 207-employee staff. Those cuts were aimed at enabling the company to meet financial targets that were promised to investors earlier this year.

"With our eye on profitability by the end of this year, we had to undertake a cost-saving initiative, which reduces the annualized expenses of the combined companies from well over $100 million to approximately $65 million to $75 million," said iVillage spokesman Carl Fischer, who added that the company expects to reach operating earnings breakeven some time during the third quarter.

The downsizing marks the end of one chapter and the beginning of another in the race to create the world's largest women's destination online. IVillage co-founder and onetime chief executive Candace Carpenter resigned as chairwoman of the board in April, and ad-dependent, content-driven sites in general have been hit particularly hard by the continuing downward spiral in online advertising spending.

The cuts were met with initial skepticism by Wall Street; iVillage shares slid to $1.28 early on Friday. But the slightly revised financial targets apparently buoyed the stock later on, and investors sent shares of the company back up more than 3 percent, or 4 cents, to $1.32 a share.

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