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.
Showing posts with label penton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label penton. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Friday, October 9, 2009
Deja Vu: Penton to Examine Its "Capital Structure"
Folio: is reporting that Penton Media is "reevaluating its capital structure." The company notified its staff that it was bringing in an outside firm to help it do the reevaluation.
Says Folio:
It all sounds familiar to me. I worked at Penton's Internet World magazine from early 2000 to mid-2003, when the print magazine was closed; I continued on as a freelance editor of a semi-monthly e-newsletter until I decided I needed an honest job and left. But for the last year or two of my time at Penton, there were constant stories about restructuring debt, bringing in new investment partners, rumors of sales, threats of being delisted from the stock exchange, etc. It was demoralizing then, and it did eventually lead to the company's sale (as noted in the quote above). But before that, there was a steady, quarter-by-quarter drain of talent as layoffs were needed every three months to appease the angry Wall Street gods. There was a lot of talent at that company, and it hurt to have it drained away.
One billion dollars? Well, I can't imagine it'll be any prettier this time. But good luck, Pentonites.
Says Folio:
Wasserstein & Co. acquired the company in 2006 for $194.2 million, plus assumption and payment of debt, putting the total value of the deal at $530 million. One media M&A observer contacted by FOLIO: estimated that Penton’s debt today could be "close to $1 billion."One billion dollars? Yikes. How will they ever dig out of that?
It all sounds familiar to me. I worked at Penton's Internet World magazine from early 2000 to mid-2003, when the print magazine was closed; I continued on as a freelance editor of a semi-monthly e-newsletter until I decided I needed an honest job and left. But for the last year or two of my time at Penton, there were constant stories about restructuring debt, bringing in new investment partners, rumors of sales, threats of being delisted from the stock exchange, etc. It was demoralizing then, and it did eventually lead to the company's sale (as noted in the quote above). But before that, there was a steady, quarter-by-quarter drain of talent as layoffs were needed every three months to appease the angry Wall Street gods. There was a lot of talent at that company, and it hurt to have it drained away.
One billion dollars? Well, I can't imagine it'll be any prettier this time. But good luck, Pentonites.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Magazine News: Update Roundup
A roundup of notes and some updates on previous posts here:
Old New Republic: If they can bring back George Clooney to ER, then why can't Martin Peretz buy back his magazine? Yep, Marty Peretz has bought back control of his baby, The New Republic magazine. As previously reported here (and here), Peretz used to own the li'l political magazine before selling it (in phases) to Canadian firm Canwest Global Communications.
In or out, in or out: Folio: reports that Penton is in the midst of layoffs and changing some print mags to online-only. But it is finding resources to launch one new print magazine, Chief Marketer.
Daily dilemma: The San Francisco Chronicle might not be killed off or sold after all. But I suspect I'm correct, as I wrote here earlier, that it'll be too weak to be a great newspaper, after it cuts hours, wages, and staff.
Last man standing: Magazine distributor Source Interlink continues to mop up its legal mess with competitors and competition, again according to Folio:. Background on this ridiculous battle here and here, and info on why traditional print distributors are whistling in the dark here.
We spit in the general direction of so-called bankruptcy: Mastehead Online reports that Reader's Digest Association President/CEO Mary Berner says phooey to speculation that the company was planning a bankruptcy, just because it had hired a law firm that is known for its work on bankruptcy cases. Still, it can't be good.
Logo tastes: In my notice about the new web site by science fiction media magazine Starlog, I asked whether the site's use of the magazine's old logo instead of the new one unveiled a few months ago was a mistake, just a placeholder, or a sign that they were abandoning the new logo. My source tells me it was none of the above. Just the preference of the web page creator.
And that's all the news that is, um, news of updated news. I'll have to work on a new closing line...
Old New Republic: If they can bring back George Clooney to ER, then why can't Martin Peretz buy back his magazine? Yep, Marty Peretz has bought back control of his baby, The New Republic magazine. As previously reported here (and here), Peretz used to own the li'l political magazine before selling it (in phases) to Canadian firm Canwest Global Communications.
In or out, in or out: Folio: reports that Penton is in the midst of layoffs and changing some print mags to online-only. But it is finding resources to launch one new print magazine, Chief Marketer.
Daily dilemma: The San Francisco Chronicle might not be killed off or sold after all. But I suspect I'm correct, as I wrote here earlier, that it'll be too weak to be a great newspaper, after it cuts hours, wages, and staff.
Last man standing: Magazine distributor Source Interlink continues to mop up its legal mess with competitors and competition, again according to Folio:. Background on this ridiculous battle here and here, and info on why traditional print distributors are whistling in the dark here.
We spit in the general direction of so-called bankruptcy: Mastehead Online reports that Reader's Digest Association President/CEO Mary Berner says phooey to speculation that the company was planning a bankruptcy, just because it had hired a law firm that is known for its work on bankruptcy cases. Still, it can't be good.
Logo tastes: In my notice about the new web site by science fiction media magazine Starlog, I asked whether the site's use of the magazine's old logo instead of the new one unveiled a few months ago was a mistake, just a placeholder, or a sign that they were abandoning the new logo. My source tells me it was none of the above. Just the preference of the web page creator.
And that's all the news that is, um, news of updated news. I'll have to work on a new closing line...
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
The Penton Experience: More Cuts
Today, Folio: reports that Penton has laid off more employees.
I've been there (literally and figuratively), having been laid off by Penton Media when it shuttered the U.S. edition of its Internet World print magazine, so my sympathies to those who just lost their jobs. When I worked there in 2000-2003, the company was public. Going through an economic crisis at a public company can be very brutal, for pretty much every quarter, the company has to offer up human sacrifices to show Wall Street that it Understands the Seriousness of the Situation. Now, Penton is a privately held company. I hope future quarters don't bring further bad news from there.
I've been there (literally and figuratively), having been laid off by Penton Media when it shuttered the U.S. edition of its Internet World print magazine, so my sympathies to those who just lost their jobs. When I worked there in 2000-2003, the company was public. Going through an economic crisis at a public company can be very brutal, for pretty much every quarter, the company has to offer up human sacrifices to show Wall Street that it Understands the Seriousness of the Situation. Now, Penton is a privately held company. I hope future quarters don't bring further bad news from there.
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