The decision was made because the turnaround in the United States, which Columbus has talked about for more than a year, still hasn’t happened. North American revenue fell 12.6 percent to approximately $44 million last year. Coupled with customers holding on purchased, led the company to that action and the suspension of the dividend. “We expect to see a substantial short-term impact on customer demand,” CEO Thomas Honoré said during the webcast. “We started seeing customers holding back.” After-tax profit dropped to about $3 million for 2019, a decline of 78.3 percent from the prior year with the write-down a big factor. Columbus ended last year with approximately $289 million in revenue, a 3-percent increase from 2018. Organic revenue was up by 4 percent The U.S. turnaround includes accelerating the move of customers to the cloud. With new leadership on this continent, “We believe we are now on the right path,” Honoré said. He continued that Columbus “expects to see progress during 2020”. but does not expec to complete a turnaround this year.