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Amid rumors and restructuring, GoPro says it’s not actively looking for a buyer

Hillary K. Grigonis
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GoPro may be ditching the drone market as the company works its way through a restructure — but the company isn’t actively looking for a buyer. After the company announced the grounding of is drone efforts, an anonymous source told CNBC that GoPro had previously hired J.P. Morgan Chase to look for a buyer. According to a statement from GoPro, however, the company isn’t actively seeking out a buyer.

“We’ve always been clear that we are open to any opportunity that will help us scale our mission,” A GoPro representative told Digital Trends. “JP Morgan is our banker, but there is no active engagement to sell. It is our responsibility to scale the business, so if the right opportunity presented itself, it’s something we would consider.”

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The announcement for reducing around 250 more staff members and pulling out of the drone industry generated questions about the action camera giant’s future.  In another report, GoPro CEO Nick Woodman said the company wished to remain independent but would consider “partner[ing] up with a larger organization that could help us scale the company.” Woodman, however, also said that the company wasn’t actively looking for a buyer.

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GoPro announced a restructuring plan at the end of 2016, cutting around 200 jobs and eliminating its entertainment division at the time. The company cut another 270 jobs in March. This morning in the fourth quarter preliminary results, the company said staff would be reduced to under 1,000, a cut of at least 252 positions. That totals more than 700 jobs in a little over a year’s time.

While the last year has been a rough one for the action camera giant, amid all the job cuts and the recall and then discontinuation of Karma, the company has had a few positive experiences as well. According to the preliminary earnings statements, the company’s 360 camera, Fusion, is selling better than expected. A price cut to the Hero5 more than doubled sales during the holidays, and the company just made a similar move with the Hero6. In the third quarter of 2017, the company posted its first profit in two years.

In a statement, Woodman said the lowered expenses from the restructuring combined with the company’s hardware and software roadmap should return the company to profitability for 2018. GoPro is now on an annual update schedule for its action cameras, while recent efforts have also focused on software expansion, including Quik Stories, the app that edits down GoPro footage until a shareable clip, and Overcapture options for the 360 Fusion.

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Hillary K. Grigonis
Hillary K. Grigonis
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Hillary never planned on becoming a photographer—and then she was handed a camera at her first writing job and she's been…
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