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CMP Restructures and Ziff Davis Files for Bankruptcy
Tech spending woes a factor.
from AICPA Custom Media Solutions

London-based United Business Media announced a major restructuring earlier this month of CMP Technology, effectively transforming the company into four separate businesses that will be led by four different CEOs.

“The company that was CMP is now gone,” UBM chief executive David Levin said in an interview with FOLIO: a widely-read trade publication for magazine executives. The four CEOs will report to Levin. “We’ve changed from what was an old magazine company to four integrated media companies. It’s the next important step in CMP’s evolution.”

The impetus for the restructuring came after months of market analysis, Levin says, during which CMP determined that the company was working in “very different markets,” and split into four businesses to better align CMP’s products with its customers: TechWeb, a technology market business of Web sites such as InformationWeek.com and Light Reading, and events including Interop and VoiceCon; the Everything Channel, which formerly was the CMP Channel; TechInsights, which formerly was CMP’s Electronics Group; and Think Services, CMP’s former Game, Dr. Dobb’s and International Customer Management Group.

The dramatic restructuring comes nearly two months after Steve Weitzner, who was moved from CEO to chairman earlier this year, left the company in January for rival publisher Ziff Davis Enterprise. Last June, facing significant annual declines in technology print advertising, CMP restructured in an attempt to focus on digital media. The company laid off 200 staffers and closed three magazines, while just last week, it agreed to purchase face-to-face events provider Gartner’s Vision Events business for $11.4 million.

Ziff Files for Bankruptcy

Ziff Davis, meanwhile had its share of blockbuster news late last week, announcing it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in order to restructure its operations and pay down its debt.

Ziff Davis Media expects operations to continue as usual during the reorganization process and to emerge from Chapter 11 this summer. During the restructuring process, vendors and business partners should expect to be paid for post-filing goods and services provided to the company.

As part of the restructuring, the ad hoc noteholder group has agreed to provide up to $24.5 million to fund Ziff Davis Media’s operations while the company is in Chapter 11.

“This agreement underscores our senior secured noteholders’ confidence in our ability to position ourselves for continued profitable growth,” said Jason Young, CEO of Ziff Davis Media, in a news release. “Today’s restructuring agreement goes a long way towards resolving the burdens of a debt load and capital structure established seven years ago, during a leveraged buyout of the company.”

Ziff Davis Media also announced that, despite good faith negotiations with certain of its subordinated unsecured noteholders, the company has been unable to reach a consensual agreement with them.