Monday, October 17, 2011

Urgent: Profit, revenue dip -- but meet forecasts; investors pummel shares: GCI dives more than 7%

From a MarketWatch story

Gannett said today its third-quarter profit dropped 1.6% to $99.8 million, or 41 cents a share, from $101.4 million, or 42 cents a share, in the year-ago period. The McLean, Va., media company's adjusted earnings fell to 44 cents a share, from 52 cents a share. Revenue dropped to $1.27 billion, from $1.31 billion. Wall Street analysts expected Gannett to earn 44 cents a share on revenue of $1.27 billion, according to a survey by FactSet Research.

Investors gave the report a thumbs-down right after markets opened: GCI's stock is down 81 cents, or 7.4%, to $10.13 a share. Earlier, in pre-market trading, investors were upbeat: The stock was up 7.4%.

Gracia Martore, in her first meeting with Wall Street analysts since being named CEO, will host a telephone conference to answer their questions at 10 a.m. ET. Corporate will webcast the call, which is open the public in listen-only mode. Tune in here.

Related: Here's the company's financial statement.

18 comments:

  1. So, not that bad? I wonder if a drop means more cost cutting or if this is pretty much staying afloat with our current expenses...

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  2. Quite noteworthy: Print advertising fell 8.5% from Q3 2010 vs. a much smaller 6.5% in Q2 2011 vs. Q2 2010.

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  3. Because of scheduling reasons, I probably won't be able to listen to the conference call that Martore will have with Wall Street analysts at 10 a.m. ET. I'll listen to the replay later, however.

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  4. And that's still where all the money comes from. Crap.

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  5. Pay 37% of the entire quarter's net income to the outgoing CEO? It's just unreal.

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  6. Also noteworthy: U.S. publishing revenue was actually down 9.3%. Newsquest did slightly better than the U.S., and that brought the overall publishing revenue to an 8.5% drop.

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  7. The link to the MarketWatch story is actually a link to GMail. (Did no one else click-through, yet?)

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  8. SHARE REPURCHASE:
    10:29(GCI)
    Gannett says repurchased approximately 2.7M shares in Q3 for $28M theflyonthewall.com

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  9. Anyone who knows how Wall Street works knows that Gannett discreetly coached analysts to expect the 44 cent EPS mark. Essentially it lowered the street's expectations to the point where Gannett could make a splash on announcement day by "meeting" or maybe even "beating" the expected 44 cent level. Most offensive of all, Gannett was able to earn 44 cents only because it continued to lay people off, sell assets, not invest in equipment and training, and pay insultingly low mileage reimbursement for use of employee vehicles. By propping up its profits by means other than selling more products and winning more customers, Gannett management is able to maintain the cash flow so's to keep stuffing bills in their pockets.

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  10. Among many issuses, its clear costs for salaried senior management is out of control at gannett andat usa today. There must be 40 seven figure salaries alone at gannett. Between the high priced friends of heathe franks management team of do nothings to hunke's gang of incompetents at usa today, its time to cut the fat, gracia. 50, easy as pie.

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  11. Share repurchase program is a joke. So is previous poster's plea for.judicious staff cuts. Gracia will focus on the other 99% because she gets it only slighly more than the $37 million man.

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  12. And back under $10 we gooooo...

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  13. Seems pretty clear if Gannet cuts to profit, and revenue is down, more cuts are on the way in order for the company to "meet" expectations again next quarter.
    Figure they will wait until all of the holiday advertising is booked.

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  14. Times for more strategic efficiencies.

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  15. If we could +1 or like comments 9:16 would get my vote. 37% of the company's profits went to one failure of a CEO?! Outrageous. I am amazed stockholders put up with these shenanigans.

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  16. @5:09, I agree. Seeing it put that way left me slack-jawed, as an employee and as a shareholder.

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  17. 30,000 people worked their tails off the past 90 days. Company makes $100 million. Craig takes nearly 40%. One guy?

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  18. Yeah, 9:02 p.m., that's perspective. Some get gold parachutes, Dubow get's a gold wheelchair. The silver model just wasn't good enough.

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Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."

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