As expected, Paris-based Lagardere confirmed that it had capped three months of negotiations with an agreement to sell all its magazines outside of France to media giant Hearst Corp.
There is fear of mass downsizings gripping the estimated 700 employees who work at Largardere’s New York-based subsidiary, Hachette Filipacchi Media, publisher of Elle, Elle Décor, Woman’s Day, Car and Driver and Road & Track, who if they are lucky enough to survive the merger may be forced to move for the third time in less than a year.
Only last October, the mags moved into 132,000 square feet of space formerly occupied by fallen financial titan Lehman Brothers in the Time & Life Building.
After HFM is acquired, they are unlikely to need all that space. Sources are saying that the advertising, marketing and editorial people should skate through the merger relatively unscathed, but all of the back shop operations, “are very worried,” said a Hachette insider.