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[halroach]

Guys,

I've hijacked my frined's account while I await a new one for Dave's -when I saw this I just couldn't wait to post it. It's from the EL Gazette:

http://www.elgazette.com/ElNews/NewsStory.asp?StoryID=776



Wall Street�s crash in Spain
By Melanie Butler,26/09/2005
THE MASTER franchisee of Spanish-based Wall Street Institutes (WSI), the multimedia language teaching giant, is to close its eighteen centres, leaving 100 staff out of work and 2,000 students without courses. The company is to offer internet-based courses to the stranded students. The latest closures leave only seventeen independently owned centres operating in a country that boasted nearly 150 WSI schools in 2002.

Spanish consumer action group Facua has alleged in the press that the Wall Street Institutes had continued trying to recruit students in spite of the announcement of the closures. Nobody at the company�s central telephone number seemed to know about the closures, Facua alleged to Spanish newspaper Cinco Dias. There was no answer on the central number when the Gazette phoned shortly before going to press. The website for WSI Spain, which still listed 41 centres, made no mention of the closures.
UGT, the union representing Wall Street staff, blames the collapse on the methodology used by the multimedia schools. �It�s a bad system for teaching languages,� a spokesperson told the Spanish press.

The union sees the decision by IEP, the master franchisee for Spain, to close its wholly owned centres as just the latest in a wave of closures in Spain�s multimedia market in the last three years. In 2002 WSI competitor chains Opening and Brighton were forced into liquidation.
In the same year Sylvan, then owners of the WSI International franchise, finding themselves in trouble in Spain, sold the master franchise for the country to IEP, headed by Wall Street founder Luigi Peccini. The Gazette has been unable to substantiate industry rumours that Mr Peccini is also involved in Wall Street�s operations in China.
WSI International has now been sold to the Carlyle Group (See June Gazette). Allegedly it was Carlyle�s decision to cut off financial support to IEP that led to the recent spate of closures, according to a report on Lukor.com.
WSI International in the US stated that the seventeen remaining centres in Spain would �continue to offer their services as normal� since �they are not affected by the operating difficulties at IEP�, although the statement emphasised that the final decision was up to the management in each centre.

The company assured the Spanish press that in other countries Wall Street Institutes will continue to operate normally.

The Gazette has had no reports of current problems in Wall Street operations outside Spain, although fourteen centres in Brazil were forced to close last year.


Edwinagirl

[spank]

the next issue will have a reply from wall street