3 posts and columns on Bruce Wasserstein

BusinessWeek’s Pitch to Investors: Buy Us, Then Fire Us

in Media on September 15, 2009 at 9:10 am PT

How do you sell a business magazine that lost $43 million last year? Convince buyers that they could fire 20 percent of the staff without missing a beat. That’s part of the pitch Evercore Partners has been making to investors on behalf of McGraw-Hill, which wants to dump BusinessWeek. Look out, copy editors!
clint-escapes

BusinessWeek Explains Why BusinessWeek Is for Sale: It’s a Money Pit

in Media on July 24, 2009 at 5:44 am PT

Earlier this year, a top BusinessWeek editor assured me that McGraw-Hill wouldn’t part with the publication–because even if it was losing money it was still a trophy asset for the publisher. But perhaps my source didn’t comprehend how much money his employer was actually losing.
dark-knight-burning

New York Mag to Writers: You’re Keeping Your Jobs, Getting a Pay Cut

in Media on January 14, 2009 at 6:03 am PT

Media layoff stories are, depressingly, old hat by now. Less common: Tales of media companies asking their surviving employees to take pay cuts. But that’s what New York Magazine is doing with its core writing staff.