Monday, December 08, 2008

Outlook: Bankruptcy jitters; a trip to Wall Street

TODAY: Investors are watching Gannett shares for fallout from reports yesterday that Tribune Co. is moving closer to a bankruptcy filing. Trading resumes at 9:30 a.m. ET; GCI closed Friday at $8.92 a share, up 40 cents, or 4.7%. Also, I'm still fishing for any final layoff plans from three big worksites: USA Today, the Detroit Free Press, and The Cincinnati Enquirer; total jobs cut so far: 1,904 from 67 of 85 U.S. dailies. WEDNESDAY: CEO Craig Dubow & Co. make presentations at the UBS media stock analysts conference; 10 a.m. ET. (Webcast details). I'm looking for severance cost estimates for the current quarter, plus more talk about Gannett One.

6 comments:

  1. I heard the Cincy Enquirer cut several editors and page designers, but no reporters this round. I didn't get hard numbers, though.

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  2. Cincy cut 13. Mostly managers. No reporters.

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  3. Gannett right now: Trading at $9.16, up 2.7%.

    Gannett since it hit its low of $5 in November: Up 83%.

    Interesting how you don't hear much about THAT here.

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  4. anonymous @1:33--Wall Street loves news of layoffs. Classic short term thinking--company cuts costs, good for company in short term, but as others follow suit (get that stock price up!) suddenly there aren't enough worker drones to keep the economy going.

    In this case, Gannett will cost cut itself into oblivion. I'm close to cancelling my 30 year sub to a (now)Gannett paper because there's so little content left after they bought out all the local writers. Why bother?

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  5. The recent rise in GCI's stock prices has nothing to do with layoff news!!! GCI rise is only due to the overall market rise...compare GCI vs the DOW & S&P500.

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  6. Um, 7:28, I feel quite confident that the Dow is not up 83% since Gannett hit its low in November. Still, BTW, $9.16 ain't beanbag.

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