EJV Sales Chief Mintz Departs, Analytics Vendor Lays Off 19 As It Reconsiders Next Step

EJV Partners L.P. parted company with its sales chief two weeks ago. At the same time, the vendor laid off 19 employees. The upheaval comes as the EJV pushes for more sales and less development--in response, sources say, to partners' increasing impatience to see revenue results.

However, EJV president Bruce Peterson now says that product development is still incomplete. "We have had to do more data and valuation development than we had originally anticipated," he says.

The layoffs, accounting for some 10 percent of EJV's total staff count, were in sales, development and operations. Analytics programmers and documentation staff were the hardest hit. Peterson says he plans to hire nine new staffers.

Last fall the EJV shifted senior executives' focus toward winning and keeping new customers. At the time, Peterson indicated that the EJV's UniVu data and analytics service was mature enough to require fewer development resources (IMT, Oct. 16, 1992).

Of the vendor's three areas of focus, Data and Data Valuation still require further attention, says Peterson. Meanwhile, Analytics is complete for the markets that EJV's UniVu fixed-income data and analytics service now covers. It is largely from this area that developers were cut last week.

While product development work continues, Peterson says his next goal is to encourage sell-side firms to use the EJV network to transmit to buy-side institutions more of the research and analytical data than it does now.

Gerry Mintz, head of sales and marketing at EJV for two years, left the company Jan. 8. His departure was largely the result of long-standing differences of opinion between Mintz and EJV president Bruce Peterson.

The EJV now finds itself without a sales chief at an inopportune moment. However, the vendor is actively seeking a replacement for Mintz, says Peterson. Internal candidates are getting first priority, he says.

Peterson would only describe Mintz's departure as "precipitous," citing an agreement reached with Mintz not to discuss the cause of the departure. But EJV observers say the two had different--and apparently irreconcilable--visions of the course the EJV should chart.

Mintz had a lot of experience on the development side. He joined CMQ Communications Inc., the Canadian quote vendor acquired in 1987 by Telerate, initially in development and later in marketing. To join the EJV in 1990, Mintz left his job as marketing manager for Telerate's Americas region and general manager for Telerate Canada.

With fewer than 400 UniVu terminals installed--and far fewer actively used by paying customers--the EJV's revenue remains but a trickle, sources say.

The staff that the EJV intends to hire will likely be deployed to build databases and handle the pricing valuations that partners submit daily. However, Peterson promises that sales and sales support staff will also be added.

In the wake of the cuts last week, which included one sales associate, the EJV now has a sales staff of five: three sales representatives--responsible for bringing in new business--and two sales associates--charged with servicing those clients.