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A New York hedge fund that earlier this year flipped the board of Depomed Inc. and installed a new CEO to boost the company’s value said Monday that it will cut 40 percent of its staff and move the drug company’s headquarters out of California.

The move is necessary, Newark-based Depomed (NASDAQ: DEPO) said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, because it is turning over sales of its pain drug Nucynta to Collegium Pharmaceutical Inc. and won’t need as large of a workforce or space.

“The storage battery is, in my opinion, a catchpenny, a sensation, a mechanism for swindling the public by stock companies,” wrote Thomas Edison in 1883.

Today, the battery industry is mustering for exponential growth as car makers electrify their fleets, most visibly at Tesla ’s $5 billion factory in Nevada. For investors looking to gain from the battery’s rise, though, the doubts of the 19th-century entrepreneur linger. The path to profitability is far from clear.

Canadian behemoth franchisor MTY Food Group Inc. agreed to acquire the franchisors of the Counter and Built upscale burger chain brands for an undisclosed amount, MTY announced today. The company expects the deal to close next month. . . The offices of the two limited liability corporations running the franchises will move to Scottsdale, Ariz., MTY said. MTY’s Kahala Group subsidiary, acquired last year, is also based in Scottsdale. Kahala’s holdings include Pinkberry, Cold Stone Creamery and Baja Fresh, among others. 

From December 2016 to March 2017, gross job gains from opening and expanding private-sector establishments were 7.3 million, a decrease of 127,000 jobs over the quarter, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over this period, gross job losses from closing and contracting private-sector establishments were 6.7 million, a decrease of 391,000 jobs from the previous quarter. The difference between the number of gross job gains and the number of gross job losses yielded a net employment gain of 654,000 jobs in the private-sector during the first quarter of 2017. (See tables A and 1.)

Tesla confirmed Friday afternoon that it has laid off hundreds of employees this week following reports that the company had cut somewhere between 300 and 700 jobs.

The job cuts come as the Palo Alto-based electric car company ramps up manufacturing for its moderately priced Model 3. CEO Elon Musk last week said the company was delaying the unveiling of its all-electric semi truck as Model 3 production hit assembly-line snags.

The layoffs were not part of structured reductions but as a result of company-wide annual reviews, a Tesla spokesperson said in a statement to the Silicon Valley Business Journal on Friday afternoon. As part of the review process, some workers received promotions and bonuses, she said, and the company is continuing to hire.

The reported cuts would dwarf the 600 layoffs the firm reported last year to California authorities, and would eliminate some 5,000 employees — 10 percent of its workforce, the report said.

“The cuts at the company, which has about 50,000 workers, are likely to affect workers in the U.S. and abroad, including managers,” Bloomberg reported, based on unnamed sources.

Virtual Guard Inc. will receive about $251,505 in tax abatements and is estimated to generate about $17.1 million in new tax revenue over 10 years. Virtual Guard is a video monitoring company, which plans to relocate its headquarters from Los Angeles, California to a location in Clark County as early as later this year, citing an “unfriendly economic environment” in California in its tax abatement application. The company plans to hire 80 new employees within its first two years of operations, making an average hourly wage of $22.31. The company plans to rent or buy an existing facility, ranging from 5,000 to 10,000 square feet depending on whether the space is leased or bought. Virtual Guard is slated to make a capital investment of just under $356,000, according to its tax abatement application. . . . ERG Aerospace Corp. will receive about $330,288 in tax abatements and is estimated to generate about $3.2 million in new tax revenue over 10 years. The company, researches, designs, develops and manufactures materials and components for the aerospace, national defense, semiconductor manufacturing, biotech, and other high technology industries. ERG currently has facilities in Oakland, California, and Sparks. The company plans to relocate its current operations in Oakland, California, to Nevada and subsequently make Nevada its headquarters. The company plans to invest over $2.1 million in capital equipment for their new facility, and plans to hire 13 employees during their first year of operations at an average wage of $30.92 per hour.

Toastmasters Chief Executive Daniel Rex, who called the move “deeply emotional,” said the costs of operating in Orange County were a major consideration in the move. The company employs about 180 people. Toastmasters reportedly already has several potential sites in Denver and will likely buy property. “When you look at the availability of workers, when you look at the cost of commerce and real estate, this is something that makes sense,” Rex told the Times. Toastmasters, which aims to help members improve their speaking and leadership skills, was founded in Santa Ana in 1924 and has had its headquarters in Rancho Santa Margarita, California, since 1990

San Mateo-based SolarCity Corp. and its parent, Tesla Inc., plan to lay off more than 200 employees at their Roseville offices, part of continuing restructuring in the aftermath of Tesla’s acquisition of SolarCity last fall.

Brocade is laying off employees at its headquarters even before its $5.9 billion merger with Broadcom closes. One analyst says it’s a sign that Brocade’s presence in San Jose, where it has several thousand employees, could vanish altogether. 

Meanwhile, Sacramento’s Aerojet puts its projected annual savings at $230 million for simply leaving California.

It was good of Aerojet to release this number. Expect only platitudes from others. For example, being in Texas will allow Kubota to respond “more quickly” to market changes and “streamline its operations for both dealer and consumer benefit.”

The loss of another fast-growing company could spur soul-searching over the Bay Area’s cost of doing business, whether it’s San Francisco’s $1.5 million median home price, high cost of living or escalating labor costs. 

The company [Avnet] is closing two of its three Silicon Valley facilities and laying off nearly 100 employees as it moves its manufacturing operations out of state.

Kellogg Co., the multinational food producing company, plans to lay off 230 employees and close its Northern California sales office in Roseville.

The list, which ranks U.S. companies by total yearly revenue, includes 53 firms whose headquarters are in the Golden State — a total that’s second only to New York’s 54. (The list of 500 companies is compiled by looking at results reported by publicly traded firms, as well as from the privately traded ones that file financial statements with a government agency.)