Lee reports lousy quarter
Lee CEO Mary Junck (Disclosure: Image was altered)
Just three weeks ago it was announced that Lee Enterprises CEO Mary Junck received a $500,000 bonus for …well, who knows what? … while her longtime sidekick, CFO Carl Schmidt, was handed $250,000. Today we get news the Mary and Carl didn’t do so well the last quarter. Some highlights today’s Lee Enterprises Q2 earnings report:
* The newspaper chain lost $26.6 million, compared with a $1.5 million in the 2011 quarter.
* Revenue fell 3.6% to $172.3 million, from $178.7 million a year ago.
* Advertising revenue declined 5.3%.
* Employee compensation decreased 5.2%
* Average number of full-time equivalent employees was down 7.5%.
* Lee Enterprises second quarter loss widens
* Lee Enterprises reports results for second fiscal quarter (Lee release)
* Lee shares down 13.61% on bleak earnings report
UPDATE: On my Facebook page, I noted that “in the middle of the Lee bankruptcy mess, she was named AP board chairman. A very clubby group those newspaper execs!” One person, who asked not to be named, sent this email in reaction:
Many of us AP retirees shudder at the thought of Gary Pruitt coming in as AP CEO and Junck taking over as the new board chair. The venerable news cooperative that has served the industry, and the world, well for 166 years will be led by two CEOs who made huge misjudgments along the way that put the survival of their companies in jeopardy and saddled them with debt that they are continuing to struggle with. I guess we can hope they learned from their mistakes and will bring a more rational approach to a worldwide news organization.
She needs the money to make sure the latest tunes are on her iPod.
In fairness, Lee’s performance should be judged against an industry average. I’m not sure what that would be, but just spitballing it, I believe Lee’s numbers are worse.
Moreover, one could make a good case that no newspaper execs should be getting raises or bonuses of any sort while the industry is in the crapper (which I would argue is largely their collective doing, though others might disagree).
In any event, the conclusion would be the same: These bonuses are a gross abuse of funds.
Pelham: But they just made major staffing cuts at the same time the bonuses went in.
Jim: That’s an amazingly childish illustration.
You oughta be better than that.
Will AP staffers have to carry “prayer cards” like Lee staffers have to? They’re the cards that list the company’s goals, which put making money first and good journalism at the bottom of the pile.
I see Warren Buffet is buying up Lee stock. Maybe he’ll bring about the management changes that should have been done 10 years ago.
In my 10 years at a Lee paper, I saw enough nepotism and cronyism to indicate the looting of the corporation was not limited to upper management.
And yes, those “prayer cards” exist.
If you’re foolish enough to continue working for these clowns, there is no pity for you.