Top U.S. tax preparer H&R Block said it was looking for a new finance chief, and that it would close about 200 underperforming company-owned stores and eliminate 350 full-time positions, its second round of store closures and job cuts in three years.
Shares of the Kansas City Montana-based company, which cut 400 jobs and shut equal number of stores in 2010, fell 16 percent to $14 in trading after the bell.
Store-front tax preparers have been cutting jobs and closing stores as they have been hit hard by user friendly tax filing software such as Intuit Inc's TurboTax and the regulatory clamp down of their most profitable product - tax refund loans.
The company's major competitor Jackson Hewitt Tax Services filed for the pre-packaged bankruptcy last May, partly due to those reasons. Jackson Hewitt has since emerged from creditor protection.
The tax preparer said it hired Crist Kolder Associates to lead the search for a new CFO.
Current chief financial officer Jeff Brown will become the chief accounting and risk officer, the company said.
H&R Block said it would offer its employees a voluntary separation plan, but if it did not meet the required target, involuntary separations would follow.
The company said it expects to record a pretax charge of about $30 million, or 6 cents per share, related to reorganization in the quarter ending April 30.
For fiscal 2012, the company said it expects earnings of 1.09 to $1.15 per share from continuing operations, on revenue of $2.9 billion.
On Wednesday, it agreed to pay $28.5 million to settle charges that its subprime mortgage unit Option One Mortgage Corp, now Sand Canyon Corp, misled investors in its offerings of subprime mortgage-backed securities.
H&R Block has been exiting non-core businesses, and has discontinued its EXPRESSTAX brand and sold its consulting unit RSM McGladrey.
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