A Recent Amvox voicemail message to Diamonds from Dave Van Andel paves the way for an announcement about a decline in sales for 1998, along with cutbacks and layoffs. Here is the text of the message.

[The following Amvox message was sent by Dave Van Andel sometime in mid-September, 1998]

"Remote message from the Diamond Hotline.

Hi everyone. This is Dave Van Andel with a heads up to Diamonds and above in North America about some corporate news that you may soon be hearing about. We wanted to make sure that you heard it from us first.

Because of some of the major economic and business activity that has been happening around the world, Amway Corporation will be tightening its belts over the next few months. The primary driver of this corporate belt tightening is the Asian economic situation and the strong U.S. dollar. Basically what this means for us is that every product imported from the U.S. or bought with U.S. dollars now costs substantially more in each of our Asian markets. Obviously, this has been adversely impacting our sales there. In addition to the Asian situation, the government actions in China and Korea changed the business environment for our distributors from one of dynamic growth to that of a virtual standstill. And while we are back in business in China, we are not yet back to where we were.

To that end, every Amway affiliate has been working on cost-cutting reduction plans for some time now. As part of these cost-cutting efforts, Amway is now offering a voluntary early retirement plan that will allow our long term employees to take a unique short cut to retirement or possibly to pursue other opportunities in their lives. We're also reviewing our staffing levels and will eliminate those jobs that simply aren't efficient for today's needs. Simply put, we are streamlining our operations wherever necessary in order to work smart and maintain our financial strength.

It's important to remember this is not the first time that we've had a dip in our growth cycle. In fact some of you may recall the downturn we experienced in the mid-eighties. But following that slowdown Amway enjoyed unprecedented growth. And actually, it is often during these temporary tough times that we come back with the most creative innovative ideas for taking this business to the next level. This is common for most companies, and you too may have experienced similar up-and-down situations in your own businesses.

Remember that Steve, Dick, Doug and myself and the rest of our families in the Amway management team are truly excited about our opportunities for growth in the months and years ahead. You've shown great enthusiasm for new business concepts, and we're right there with you as we develop new strategies for growth, particularly with the opportunities that technology brings. With all this in mind, we think the Amway business is poised for some spectacular gains in the coming years. We hope you think the same way as we build an even greater Amway business, not only for 1999 but for the year 2000 and beyond into the next century.

Thanks for listening, we'll be talking to you again soon, but we wanted to keep you informed, and we also want to thank you for your continued efforts and your devotion to this business. It truly is what makes Amway unique, and makes Amway great.

End of message."

We have been informed recently that as many as 700 Amway employees will be offered early retirement by the end of 1998, with further reductions in force possible after that.