The fellow News Corp. firm will now represent the social network in Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Italy, Poland, Mexico, and Turkey, taking care of sales, marketing and promotion in those territories.
Commenting on the decision, MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta said the move would help the company reduce operational costs, while taking advantage of the local knowledge of FIC’s established sales forces.
A company statement makes no mention of other offices the firm said are “under review for restructure or possible closure” last month. France, India, Russia, and Sweden are all excluded from the FIC deal, perhaps suggesting a complete withdrawal from those markets.
Even in the U.S. — one of MySpace’s strongest markets — the company announced 30 percent of the workforce there will be let go because bloated staffing levels are “hindering the ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company.”
In an attempt to better compete with dominant social networking competitor Facebook, MySpace has spent the first half of the year restructuring its executive team. MySpace founder Chris DeWolf was replaced by former Facebook exec Van Natta in April, and his hire was followed by those of digital heavyweights Jason Hirschhorn as chief product officer and Michael Jones as chief operating officer.
In an interview with TheStreet.com earlier this month, News Corp. CEO and chairman Rupert Murdoch said he still has global plans for MySpace, but attempting to expand quickly was a mistake. “We’re just getting first things right first. The business sort of grew out of control and really out of size. I blame myself and it had to be brought back in size,” he told the TheStreet.com.