Make your own decision about how much credence to put into this new Moody’s ranking. It looked to me like Emmis Communications had gotten ahead of the game with giant write-offs last year. Here’s what I know: TxMo president Evan Smith and I did a conference last week for Professor Dave Garlock’s famous class at UT, and exchanging numbers as publishers do, Smith shared the magazine’s profit ratios, which remain solid. So even if parent Emmis is in trouble, TxMo should weather the storm just fine.
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While wary of a Moody’s report being too rosy (see, global credit crisis: causation) i trust them on negative watch.
Emmis, at a meager .27/share they are trading at 3.7x trailing 12m earnings.
They have 75mm in loans (not bonds) coming due 2012 and a whopping 455mm in 2013.
Good luck with alllll that.
I wish someone would have come to Garlock’s class when I was in it and told me to find another profession.
And the profit ratios were stated under oath, yes?
For the quarter ended 11/30/08 Emmis reported the following about its publishing operation:
“Pro forma revenues in our Publishing division were $22.9 million, down 12% during the third quarter. General economic weakness has significantly impacted each of our city/regional magazines. Each of our magazines saw decreases in net revenue during the third quarter. This weakness has intensified in our fourth quarter [ended 2/28/09], with pacings down more than 20% compared to the prior year.”
Did Evan Smith’s numbers jibe with that? Emmis’ comments don’t sound very optimistic about their publishing business.
@Kirk: Good work. And yes, Evan’s numbers were in line. As for Emmis’ comments not sounding very optimistic, I can only say that they sound realistic. It mirrors what happened to publishing after 9/11.
@ John: Prof. Garlock was always realistic about the magazine business and indeed, told me on at least one occasion to do something else with my life. That was in 1993, and although publishing has been kind to me in the years since then I’m not entirely sure he was wrong.
If my class is “famous,” it is only because of really sucessful publishers like Wick Allison and Evan Smith coming to tell my students (and me) what is really happening in publishing. I have had the good fortune of being able to know Wick for a long time, and being able to work with him on a project or two, and have been amazed at his knowledge of the “business” of publishing, which all publishers do not possess. A lot of Evan’s staff comes to speak to my class, including the brilliant VP for circulation, Meta-Margret Carson (yesterday) and I always amazed at how many steps Texas Monthly and D are ahead of “famous” NY titles.