Gannett's stock just closed at $4.06 a share, up 31 cents -- handing CEO Craig Dubow and other top executives more than $429,000 in potential one-day profits on stock options they got less two months ago. The options let them to buy GCI for $3.75 a share in four annual installments, starting in February 2010.
Dubow (left) had the biggest one-day paper gain: $155,000, based on the 500,000 shares he got, public documents show. The execs' paper gains are Wall Street's reward for cost-cutting that's lately included hundreds of layoffs in the past three weeks, as Corporate gears up for Thursday's quarterly earnings conference call with stock analysts. The board of directors gave the 1.14 million options in late February. They became worthless almost immediately after Gannett's share price fell as low as $1.85.But that changed only Thursday, when Gannett's shares soared nearly 40% on news Chicago money manager Ariel Capital Investments had unexpectedly amassed the second-biggest stake of Gannett stock. Today's gain adds to a rally that's powered GCI up 59% in the past five trading sessions.
The ongoing round of layoffs add to investor confidence: Only today, Gannett said it is forcing out 44 employees at a clutch of suburban Detroit weeklies, raising to 310 the number of workers sent packing companywide, Gannett Blog readers say.
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Moon likely forfeits any profits because at the end of the week, he won't be working for GCI any more.
ReplyDeleteIf I were Moon, I'd take a retirement. Why not?
ReplyDeleteReally, who cares. There is not a damn thing we can do about it. We need more about the workers, not corporate salaries.
ReplyDelete11:01: Many current, and former, employees have GCI stock as part of their 401 K portfolio. I do. So, I'm realizing a profit, too.
ReplyDeleteThe stock price increase is a good thing. But it's getting a bad spin here. Look beyond the execs and you'll see more money in everyone's retirement accounts. That is, those who held onto the stock.
And, yes, I know it is a pittance compared to the 2007 price. But up is better than down.
I agree with the previous poster. This is good news for any employee holding Gannett stock. I don't care if the execs make money as long as I have a job and am making money as well. Maybe this will mean no more furloughs!!
ReplyDeleteI think Gannett should cancel these options and the executives should be poor. I mean, we have so many poor employees.
ReplyDeleteJesus, this post is misleading. These are options, not stock. In other words, the execs don't even hold the stock yet. You can't borrow against options; you can't do anything but wait for the options to be usable (usually several years). Calling this a 'paper profit' is false, completely misleading and more than a little dumb...unless you're doing it to get a phony rise out of people, in which case it's false, misleading and more than a little evil.
ReplyDelete8:22 am: Better re-read the post. I wrote that these executives got "potential one-day profits on stock options they got less two months ago. The options let them to buy GCI for $3.75 a share in four annual installments, starting in February 2010."
ReplyDeleteThese options are extremely valuable, if only from an income-deferral standpoint. Do you really think Dubow and his buds would take them in lieu of cash if they weren't?
Tierney getting $1.2 mill base and bonus in Philly plus $2.5 equity. Good deal for a bankrupt company.
ReplyDeleteTOP EXECS SCORE BIG PAPER PROFITS. That's your headline, Jim. Think it's accurate?
ReplyDelete1:52 pm: You're getting tedious -- which earns you the following:
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry Gannett Blog doesn't meet your needs. Please start a Gannett website of your own, following my example. Spend more than a year building a blog from scratch. Get paid little or no money. Then experience what it's like to be bashed by anonymous posters like you.
Jim:
ReplyDeleteDid you start the blog to make money? I don't recall that being the reason but guess I'll need to go back to the initial posts and see.
In any case, your response to 1:52 (who is NOT me) is whiny and oh-so-newspaper-journalist "pity poor me."
If you can't take the heat in the blogosphere - where anonymity is the norm, along with mean-spirited comments - then maybe it's time YOU thought of doing something else.
You seem burned out. Or maybe you were just tired. I hate to see you sink to the level of lowest comment (cq) denominator.