Sun-Times Media Group Inc. Q4 2007 Earnings Call Transcript

  • download
  • Print
  • Recommend
  • 0

2008-03-31 17:30:15.0

Tags: Sun-Times Media Group Inc.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

Your first question comes from the line of Alfred Coplan.

Alfred Coplan

In regard to the $50 million that you’re trying to save, how much of that have you accomplished and how much do you figure to accomplish in the future?

Cyrus Freidheim, Jr.

We have divided it into two pieces, one in terms of the actual cost reductions and about 90% of those have been achieved already, of the $50 million, and about two-thirds of the targeted head count eliminations have been completed.

The first quarter will not recognize all of that because the implementation was during the fourth quarter and the first quarter. The few things we have remaining are principally some outsourcing that is being announced but has not been completed.

Alfred Coplan

Okay, thanks.

Operator

(Operator Instructions). And your next question comes from the line of Jennifer Wallace - Summit Street Capital.

Jennifer Wallace - Summit Street Capital

In an effort to try to get in your financial statements to a point where they are much clearer, I’ve gone through and just tried to pull out onetime costs, and I’d love to just run through these with you and get a sense of if they are correct based on my back of the envelope today; where you expect those numbers to be once the cost savings are achieved.

So if you look at cost of sales, I think that’s roughly 65% of sales, the $240 million, $280. Are there any cost savings in the $50-million plan that would come out of that number?

William G. Barker

Some of the efforts we’re making in terms of improving our ratio of news hold to ad space in the newspaper, as well as we have reduced the size of some of the newspapers out there, we expect those will impact and reduce our newsprint consumption.

Jennifer Wallace - Summit Street Capital

Okay, and I would imagine also some wages and benefits will come down?

Cyrus Freidheim, Jr.

Editorial costs I believe are in there.

William G. Barker

Editorial costs are in there as well, correct.

Jennifer Wallace - Summit Street Capital

Okay, so of the $50 million in savings, how much of that are you targeting to come out of that $240 million of cost of sales?

Cyrus Freidheim, Jr.

I’m not sure we’ve got it cut exactly that way, Jenny. We have it by category of activity, like the Tribune distribution agreement, the restructuring of the newspapers, the SouthtownStar, as Bill just mentioned, the reduction in our newsprint. Then there’s head count reductions. I’m not sure which of those categories it’s in because we don’t really manage the company to that line on the P&L. We manage it more to our business units and other...

 

BNET TalkbackShare your ideas and expertise on this topic

Please add your comment:

  1. You are currently: a Guest |
  2.  

Basic HTML tags that work in comments are: bold (<b></b>), italic (<i></i>), underline (<u></u>), and hyperlink (<a href></a)

advertisement
advertisement
  • Click Here
  • Click Here
  • Click Here
advertisement
Click Here