THE carnage at Condé Nast continued as the company sent 19 members of David Carey‘s Golfing Group packing.
The latest round of cuts brings to more than 200 the number of jobs eliminated since last week, when the company closed four magazines. For the year, Condé has eliminated more than 350 positions and shut down six titles.
A Condé Nast spokeswoman would say only, “We’re not confirming numbers, but there were layoffs.”
Meanwhile, sources told Media Ink that positions were eliminated at Lou Cona‘s Condé Nast Media Group, which is responsible for generating about 85 percent of the corporation’s ad revenue. At Anna Wintour‘s Vogue, there were reports that three people were laid off on the editorial side, while the business side, run by Publisher Tom Florio, lost four positions.
Penton perils
Even before the sudden death of Lazard boss Bruce Wasserstein Wednesday, there were signs that his media holdings were facing significant pressure.
Among them: Penton Business Media, which is owned 50-50 by Wasserstein & Co. and Mid-Ocean Capital Partners.
A week before Wasserstein died, Penton CEO Sharon Rowlands told employees in a memo that Penton had hired investment bank Rothschild Inc. “to help assist us with the evaluation of our capital structure.”
That’s financial lingo for “Investors are going to have to take a financial bath if the firm is to get out of its mess.”
Penton is carrying a debt load of about $950 million, but because it doesn’t report earnings publicly, it is unclear exactly how the publisher is coping with the ad recession. However, it’s safe to assume that the $425 million in revenue booked in 2008 has tumbled this year, pushing the firm ever closer to defaulting on its debt.
Indeed, Penton’s debt rating earlier this year was drastically lowered, deep into junk status, with Standard & Poor’s issuing a negative outlook for the company.
“Liquidity is weak, given the company’s thin margin of compliance with financial covenants,” S&P said in July.
Moody’s Investors Service earlier this year made a similar move.
Meanwhile, Wasserstein’s other big media holdings, The Deal LLC and New York Media Holdings — the latter of which owns New York magazine — were both funded though a personal trust. That helped shield them from quarter-to-quarter pressure from outside investors expecting a return.
But now that Wasserstein’s $2.2 billion estate must be sorted out, those arrangements could run into trouble.
That’s because it’s difficult for trusts that are managed for profit to underwrite money-losing businesses.
Still, one mergers-and-acquisitions executive said, “One would guess that the issue will be up to his estate and therefore take some time before an outcome is clear. Eventually, yes, with whatever personal attachment no longer in the picture, these assets may be sold.”
Meal ticket
Here’s further proof that rivals can still be friends.
Jim Friedlich, a partner at ZelnickMedia, is letting bygones be bygones after his pal Norman Pearlstine of Bloomberg LP prevailed in the auction for strug gling BusinessWeek.
Despite having been out bid by Mayor Mike Bloomberg‘s financial and media company, Friedlich, Pearlstine and their wives plan to celebrate Pearlstine’s new title as chairman of BusinessWeek over dinner next week.
“I’ll pay for dinner since Norm picked up the tab for BusinessWeek,” Friedlich quipped.
Throughout the BusinessWeek auction process, old friends were bumping into each other. That’s because a number of key players involved in the hunt for the magazine are Wall Street Journal alumni.
For example, Pearlstine was the Journal’s executive editor in the late 1980s, and was the point man involved in Bloomberg’s winning bid.
Friedlich, meanwhile, was a longtime Journal vice president in charge of global sales, and was spearheading the bid for ZelnickMedia, which is run by media mogul Strauss Zelnick.
Also in the Zelnick camp was L. Gordon Crovitz, the Journal’s former publisher, who served as an adviser.
Even within BusinessWeek, Journal alums played a key role. Editor Steve Adler was originally hired by Pearlstine at the Journal, and Adler’s No. 2 at BusinessWeek, Ellen Pollock, also worked at the paper. If that wasn’t enough, Jessica Sibley, the magazine’s publisher, is a former member of the Journal’s ad-sales team. keith.kelly@nypost.com