Penton Media Heads for Bankruptcy Filing

My one-time employer, Penton Media, is going to file for a pre-packaged bankruptcy soon that will see it emerge from Chapter 11 status after 30 to 45 days shorn of $270 million in debt, reports Folio:.

Penton, a B2B publisher based in New York City, has had gob-smacking amounts of debt for years. When I worked there in 2000-2003 at its now-defunct Internet World magazine, the company went from record profits to staggering debt -- I believe it was on the order of $700 million, mainly from some bad bets it had made in the technology publishing and trade show arenas. (Its San Francisco-based Streaming Media title was a particularly heavy weight on the company, I was told.) Anyway, the company labored under that debt for a while, before finally restructuring and merging with another company that assumed the Penton name. (And if any of you have ever worked for a public company in trouble, you know about the quarterly need to feed some raw meat to the Wall Street lions, thus the four-times-yearly tension about which titles were closing or which staffers were being laid off.)

I don't know if the $270 million is a remnant of the $700 million, or if it's new debt. If the latter, then I'm not sure how they'll avoid running up another few hundred million in debt in the next five years. We'll see.

Sam Zell Out as Tribune CEO

Sam Zell, the Chicago-based real estate honcho who bought Tribune Company and took it private, is no longer CEO of the company, reports Jeff Bercovici at Daily Finance. That will come as a pleasant change for those of us who have watched in horror as the Tribune has been lobotomized by incompetent slashing and burning (I know, mixed metaphors, but work with me here -- it's a real mess).

But it won't be a complete triumph. Notes Bercovici: "The bad news: As chairman, he'll 'continue to provide the management team with strategic oversight and vision' -- the same oversight and vision that guided Tribune into the ditch it currently occupies."

Tribune continues to struggle in bankruptcy. But it's staff might be a little bit happier now.

Chicago Cubs Are Bankrupt, but Will Still Be Sold for $845 Million

The Chicago Cubs filed for bankruptcy protection today as part of parent Tribune Company's efforts to sell the popular-but-bad team. (I make no effort to be non-partisan on this blog or this topic; I'm a White Sox fan -- as is our president, so it's only patriotic to be a Sox fan.)

The Cubs aren't likely really bankrupt, at least not in the usual sense. (CNBC reported just a few weeks ago that the Cubs remain a money machine. See video below.) It was a necessary part of the sale deal, because likely new owners -- the Ricketts family -- won't be liable to Tribune creditors as Tribune continues working through its own real bankruptcy. (Tribune filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2008.)

I always found it amusing that the White Sox could be winning their division or be in second place almost every year, and they'd often be playing to crowds (what's in a word?) of 6,000 or 12,000. Meanwhile, the Cubbies would be lounging at the bottom of their National League division and they'd be playing to sold-out crowds of drunk Northwestern frat boys and drunk Loop businessmen (former Northwestern frat boys, natch) entertaining clients. Cubs fans love Wrigley Field and the Cubs. White Sox fans love baseball. There's a difference.

Dykstra's Magazine Problem, and not Yours

Former baseball star Lenny Dykstra's currently anywhere between $10 million and $50 million in debt, apparently mostly due to the failure of a magazine for professional athletes, of which he was part owner. Though he might deserve some credit for at least trying something a little different, this might be one of those rare times when I'd agree with the pessimists who say print magazines are dead. In this specific istance. Because magazines are certainly not high on the list of things to which professional athletes pay attention. Too many words, not enough moving pictures. And why have a magazine telling you how wonderful and special you are, when you can have your paid flunkies telling it to you all day long?

Anyway, sorry to hear it bankrupted the guy, but Motley Fool seems to think he'd have hit the wall sooner or later from one of his get-rich-quick schemes. So let's not blame this one on "the death of magazines," okay?

Reader's Digest Brouhaha

While the Reader's Digest Association considers bankruptcy, it's also getting flack from some disgruntled emotional freelancers over two of its magazines that use "repurposed" content. Folio: reports here on the freelancin' controversy. (Seems to me that reuse of the material would or would not be clearly covered in any freelance contract they signed, no? If it wasn't in the contract, then the freelancers have a beef. If it was in the contract, then they have nothing to complain about.)

For more on the possible bankruptcy filing (and its tiny $2.1 billion in debt!), see this New York Post report.