Friday, March 05, 2010

GateHouse Media CEO: We don't have any ideas for making money, but we can cut some more

GateHouse Media officials are ecstatic because they lost less money in 2009 than they did in 2008. And while they apparently do not have any ideas to increase revenue, the good news is there is still plenty to cut, according to a filing today with the Securities and Exchange Commission:

Commenting on GateHouse Media’s results, Michael E. Reed, GateHouse Media’s Chief Executive Officer, said, “As the economy began to stabilize throughout the year, we experienced continued improvement in our year over year revenue trends. Our fourth quarter same-store revenue declines were 10.5% compared to 14.9% in the third quarter. This trend has continued into our first quarter.
“We continue to focus on permanent cost reduction initiatives. These programs were a significant contributor to a 10.7% expense decline in 2009, driven by an 11.0% decline in compensation expense. We are in the process of implementing additional cost saving initiatives in order to better align our overall cost structure with current revenue trends.
“The improvement in revenue trends and our cost saving initiatives, combined with controlled capital spending, have resulted in improved cash flow and liquidity. Our Levered Free Cash Flow per share increased from $0.19 in the third quarter to $0.24 in the fourth quarter, and represented a fifty percent increase from fourth quarter 2008. We have significantly improved our working capital position over the course of 2009, which positions us well going into 2010.”

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