Mike Reed Sets Goals for New Gannett

Can you imagine being the reporter who has to write that?

 

I'd like to think some of that excess will go to editors and reporters who haven't seen a raise in a decade.
...
Please stop laughing at me.

 

More likely.

Stock buybacks

 

I would LOVE to know what the furloughs actually saved / how were actually necessary.

 

It saves about 8 percent per quarter on salaries.

You still have the employee benefits as I'm sure Blue Cross or whomever they contract with isn't going to let them skip a payment. You still have to keep the office open (assuming you have one anymore). You sometimes need to pay out OT because you're short-staffed.

I'd be surprised if they knock 5 percent, total, off their bottom line.

 

I would LOVE to know how Gannett turned a 32.8 million dollar profit after turning losses for several quarters. EBIT was down 21%. It is strange that a company that sees EBIT decline that much shows a big jump in profits. The company has yet to file their 10-K. I an just guessing but I think there will be a big one off adjustment in their income statement.

 

Stock price rocketed up 23% today, so Wall Street loved the earnings report. But I think the stock price will recede quickly, as Warner Brothers/Discovery reported poor results today after hours and warned of a softening ad market.

 

I am not sure why. The company reported a 32.8 million dollar profit in the fourth quarter. But the company booked 45 million dollars of profits from "non-operating pension income".

Pension fund accounting is very, very complex because it requires a lot of very complicated assumptions about future investment returns. Companies can tweak these assumptions to produce a profit. But since the gain was within the pension fund the company received no cash. That is why EBITDA declined.

But without the pension lifeline the company would have continued to book a loss.

 

FWIW, when I was going through Gannett's 10-k I saw the circulation numbers for their largest markets. The Nashville paper has a circulation number of 21, 554. Nashville metro has a population of 2,000,000. Austin has a circulation of 26,455. Austin metro has a population is 2.3 million.

 

Just print or combined with digital?

 

Digital and print.