This summary is based on the fourth quarter fiscal 2006 earnings call conducted by The New York Times Co. (NYT) on January 31, 2007.
Management:
President, CEO: Janet Robinson
President, General Manager: Scott Heekin-Canedy
SVP, CFO: Jim Follo
VP Communications: Catherine Mathis
SVP, Digital Operations: Martin Nisenholtz
Key Investors Issues
- The company reported a net loss of $4.50 per share, compared with earnings per share of 43 cents in the fourth quarter of 2005.
- Excluding the additional week, print advertising revenues declined 7%.
- Ad expenses declined 76% to $8.5 million from $35.4 million in the same period in 2005.
Fourth Quarter Highlights
The company would be performing annual impairment test on all of its intangible assets and a charge might be required.
The company completed testing which did result in a charge of $814 million, or approximately $5 per share after tax. The charge was mainly the result of the recent operating performance of these assets and current trends in the business. Despite this charge, the company continues to view these properties as important assets of company and it remains focused on improving their performance and value.
With this charge, the company reported a net loss of $4.50 per share, compared with earnings per share of 43 cents in the fourth quarter of 2005. Excluding this charge, fourth quarter earnings would have been 61 cents per share, which was above the consensus estimates provided by The Street, and 42% above the same quarter in 2005.
The quarter turned out better than expected, because of higher than expected anticipated advertising revenues.
- Print advertising across the industry remains under pressure, as advertisers in important categories experience business difficulties of their own.
- Consolidations continue to affect the company.
- Increasingly, ad dollars are being allocated to the web and while the company is capturing a sizable share of those dollars, the differential between print and online ad rates remains significant.
Research and development group in its first full year of operation worked closely with business group, to build revenues through new mobile products at the Times, the Globe, and Gainesville and a local search product at Boston.com, which is capturing fast growing local online advertising.
This group has also been instrumental in the launch of the Times Reader, a new way to read the Times which takes advantage of Microsoft''s new Vista operating system, to provide the look and feel of a newspaper with the functionality of the web.
The company began rebalancing portfolio of businesses with the sale of interest in the Discovery Times Channel, and the pending sales of Broadcast Media Group and radio station, WQEW, for a total in excess of $700 million.
The company has made several small acquisitions and investments in the digital space, including the purchase for $35 million of Baseline Studio Systems, a primary B2B supplier of proprietary entertainment information to the film and television industries.
Cost control remained a priority. Over the past two years, the company has reduced costs and realized productivity gains of $120 million. Last year, the company announced the consolidation of New York area printing facilities, and a web width reduction at the New York Times. Across the company, there continues to be a multitude of initiatives to reduce cost structure, streamline organization, and strengthen the effectiveness of enterprise.
The company announced a restatement of previously issued financial statements primarily to reflect a change in accounting for two jointly trustee plans, a pension plan, and a benefit plan established under collective bargaining agreements between the company and guild at the Times.
While the restatement will not have a material effect on previously reported operating results, it will increase assets by approximately $30 million, liabilities by $100 million net of deferred taxes and it will reduce stockholder''s equity by approximately $70 million as of December 25, 2005. The issues that resulted in this restatement do not affect funding obligations.
Excluding the additional week, print advertising revenues declined 7%, while online revenues climbed 30%, so that overall ad revenues for News Media Group decreased 4.8%.
The trend was that October ad revenues at the News Media Group decreased 5.7%, November declined 5%, and December, excluding the additional week, was down 3.7%.
At the Times Media Group, ad revenues decreased 3.5%, excluding the additional week.
