DexYP, a successor to Dex Media, plans to close its office in Greenwood Village soon, marking the end locally for a company that once was a major employer and early innovator in online advertising.
“As we continue to look for efficiencies and cost reduction opportunities, it was determined that a lease renewal wasn’t an option,” said Paige Blakenship, a spokeswoman for DexYP.
The Dallas-based business directory publisher, now focused primarily on cloud-based business software, filed a notice with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment to eliminate 39 jobs at its office at 7600 E. Orchard Road in Greenwood Village by Sept. 30.
The fate of the remaining 140 jobs is under review, but more layoffs are likely. Any employees retained will work remotely once the office on Orchard Road closes, Blankenship said.
That represents a sad end for a firm that once was one of the region’s premier employers, said Jo Lynne Whiting, a former top executive at US West Dex.
DexYP came from the merger of Dex Media and Yellow Pages publisher YP Holdings last year. Dex Media in turn came out of Qwest Dex, previously US West Dex and before that US West Direct, one of seven directory businesses created when anti-trust regulators broke up AT&T in 1984.
Initially a laggard, US West’s directory business experienced explosive growth in the 1990s by taking advantage of the newly minted internet and turning its sales force into business consultants.
The company’s portals once generated as many online searches as the major search engines and the firm was the leading producer of online ads in the region, Whiting said.
At the company’s peak in 2000, there were 3,570 employees in 14 states and close to a dozen offices spread across Colorado. That year, the metro Denver business directory came in at a hefty 4,500 pages, according to a history of the company compiled by Jarett Zuboy.
That was also the year Qwest Communications acquired US West. Financial mismanagement under Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio put the region’s premier telecom provider on the brink of bankruptcy.
His successor sold the Qwest Dex directory business in 2002 for $7 billion to a private equity consortium, allowing the company to pay down debt and survive. But the new owners piled heavy debts on their cash cow, causing it to stumble.
R.H. Donnelley Corp., a directory publisher, acquired Dex Media in 2006. Back then, the company still had 900 employees in the metro area. At the start of this decade, the company’s “Dex Knows” ads were everywhere.
But with each passing year, print directories fell further out of favor. Google, and later Facebook, extended their dominance over digital advertising.
Whiting argues that the heavy debts piled on the company in leveraged buyouts left it less able to cope with the competitive threats.
“The financial re-engineering really changed it. Before that, there was a real loyalty to the customers,” she said.
