Asia Tech Wire (May 22) -- Micro Connect, the fintech company founded by former HKEX CEO Charles Li, has announced layoffs.

Charles Li and partner Gary Zhang, former chairman of OP Financial Ltd, announced the matter in an internal letter, admitting that the layoffs involved management's earlier failure to control the pace of placing its own funds and overstaffing in advance.

In response, Micro Connect said on Wednesday, "As a startup, this is one of the toughest decisions we have had to make at Micro Connect since its inception."

The company sent out a company-wide letter to employees in mid-May announcing its latest strategic gauge to focus on market building and trading platform development, including driving more market investor participation, central exchange trading facility, as well as disclosure, valuation, risk control and post-investment asset management.

With the launch of the new strategy, Micro Connect said there is a need to adjust the organizational structure of the company's relevant departments as well.

The restructuring, which includes job changes and reductions, involves more than a hundred employees in different regional offices, the company said.

Micro Connect is offering employees an "N+3" severance package, where the "N" is for seniority, with one month's salary for each year of service, and "+3" means an additional three months' salary.