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New York Times Safe; Canwest Still Sinking

posted by Geordie Geography: Canada, USA Topics: media, economics, coroporations

January 27, 2009

New York Times Safe; Canwest Still Sinking

As previously reported, both the New York Times and CanWest Global have been facing steep economic challenges recently.

The Times has been thrown a lifeline by Carlos Slim Helu, the Mexican Communications Billionaire who's loaning them $250 million to help them cope with the $l.1 billion in debts they already have.

Things however, seem to have gotten a whole lot worse for CanWest. David Beers, editor-in-chief at the Tyee, managed to get an internal memo from CanWest about 'cost containment'.

It's seems everything is being cut at the chain including:

A freeze on all hiring,
A freeze on salaries,
A freeze on meals, catering and entertainment expenses,
Ceasing engagements with external consultants,
A freeze on conference/seminar attendance,
Equipment expense and capital purchase delays,
Limiting the use of mobile devices by 20-25%,
Reducing energy usage.


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This must not happen

A freeze on all hiring,
A freeze on salaries,
A freeze on meals, catering and entertainment expenses,

No i am worried about this issues.
How could we live without them.
A government should take time fixing this issues.
http://reviews-news.com

CanWEST

The faster that CanWest goes into bankruptcy the better. Who thought that corporate control of news rooms and opinion pages would be something that the public would want. Do we need to hear the same news from 5 different mediums all owned by the same corporations in one market that Isreal is acting in self defense. NA NA NA NA GOOD BYE.

The current generation of

The current generation of business leaders seem to have fallen in love with greed in a way unseen since the Roman times. The Roman wealthy took all the cash thru brutality and our current "gang of thieves" use their Harvard degrees to qietly LEVERAGE themselves to again: 'take all the cash'.
Onex, Canwest, Trump et al...... Did Harvard, Yale, Princeton etc. strike the word EQUITY from all of their text books? Has there ever been a time when so many businesses owe more than they are worth? Of course they can blame the current economic woes rather than their thirty year slide into the abyss. Borrow, borrow,.............

indeed

huh, the NYT says so too... my bad!

Slim's slippery millions

According to CNBC the investment was actually a "$250 million loan in the form of six-year notes, with warrants that are convertible into shares. It should be worth Slim's while: the notes charge 14 percent interest. And these terms speak to just how much the Times needs this cash."

Helu did however, invest in September of last year.

Slim's cool $250 million

Slim invested $250 million in the NYT, it wasn't a loan. There is some interesting discussion about the future of the NYT going on here and here.