Lexmark layoffs hit Lenexa offices of former Perceptive Software

Lexmark International is laying off 320, or 10 percent, of its software business employees, a unit that includes its Lenexa operations formerly called Perceptive Software.

A spokeswoman on Wednesday declined to discuss the local impact of the job cuts but said in an email that the cutbacks reached “all functional areas in the Lexmark Enterprise Software business on a global basis” and was part of a restructuring begun Tuesday.

Lexmark had discussed job cuts in its software business early in 2016.

Lexmark, based in Lexington, Ky., bought Perceptive Software in 2010 for $280 million and then, in 2015, acquired its rival Kofax Ltd., in a transaction valued at $1 billion.

As recently as April, the company said it had about 500 employees at 8900 Renner Road in Lenexa, which had taken the name Lexmark Enterprise Software a year before. In prior years, the Lenexa operations had more than 700 employees.

“This action was taken to reduce our costs to be more in line with our revenues and those of comparable enterprise software companies,” said the statement from Sylvia Chansler, public relations manager for Kofax Inc. in Irvine, Calif.

Chansler said the company remains “solidly profitable and therefore financially healthy.”

Lexmark was acquired last year by a Chinese consortium of investors led by Apex Technology of China and PAG Asia Capital in a transaction valued at $3.6 billion. The sale followed Lexmark’s review of strategic alternatives.

In November, when the Apex group completed its purchase of Lexmark, the companies planned to separate the enterprise software operation from the rest of Lexmark and rebrand it as Kofax. They also planned to seek a buyer for the software business. Chansler confirmed the company still is interested in selling the software business.

This story was originally published January 4, 2017 at 2:38 PM with the headline "Lexmark layoffs hit Lenexa offices of former Perceptive Software."