"Ahem... John, don't get excited, discourage, aren't we discussing? Don't be angry, how can the newspaper leave you. ”

CEO Eddie had a smile on his face that was more ugly than crying, stood up, pulled the editor-in-chief John back, held him on the other side's shoulders and pressed him to the seat, and then looked around with a wry smile.

"I know that you are very dissatisfied with what happened to the newspaper recently, but what can I do? Now the parent company has a debt of 12.9 billion, and it can't pay off the debt at all, and the bankruptcy application is already a sure thing, and the parent company can come up with any way to repay the debt... ”

"There's no way? Didn't Andy Smith submit a letter of acquisition? Since he is so short of money, why don't he agree to come down, it's still worth selling now, don't wait to sell it after he dies, but I don't know what the price is!"

As soon as his words fell, the originally dead conference room immediately became a lot of discussions, noisy, looking at the people who were talking to each other, CEO Eddie also smiled helplessly, he didn't want Andy Smith, who was not bad at money, to be his boss, but the board of directors of the parent company was not in agreement, and they quarreled because of this matter, and in the end they did not come up with a result.

"According to what I have received, the Miami Herald has reached a deal with Andy Smith for a transaction price of around 300 million, and the contract will be signed soon... The executive editor, Dean, told the meeting what he had gotten earlier, and it caused even more discussion, with almost everyone having a look of envy on their faces, envious of the Miami Herald newspaper.

"Holding a newspaper doesn't pay off handsomely. As a successful genius billionaire, Andy Smith knew absolutely that newspapers would not be as profitable as they were decades ago. Margins are low now, and they will get lower and lower.

But why does he keep buying up declining newspapers?" the editor-in-chief, John, also calmed down at this time, frowned and raised his voice, and immediately suppressed the discussion in the conference room.

"I've been thinking about it, and while newspapers may not be the best place to invest in them from an economic point of view, for some wealthy people, investing in influential traditional print media has the potential to gain enormous prestige.

Moreover, I even think that in the future there will be the survival of the newspaper industry in the thirties and forties of the last century, with big investors, big corporations using the newspaper industry as part of their philanthropy.

If the Los Angeles Times were in Andy Smith's hands, he would hold it for as long as he needed it, and invest money to make the newspaper stronger, look at the Newsweek, the New York Observer, which one didn't get his financial backing?

Even the British "Du Libao" and "Evening Standard" have been brought back to life in his hands, and everyone knows that a new issue of "DU Libao" has spent 1 million pounds just for its inception and promotion, such a big sum, in recent years, have you seen it?"

The words of the editor-in-chief John made the newspaper executives in the conference room fall into deep thought, and everyone knew that according to the character and habits of the editor-in-chief, his words were not finished, and sure enough, it was as everyone thought.

"And some people want to use the big newspapers as 'cash machines', and apply the unrealistic ideas that led to the crisis of the housing loan market to the media industry, hehe, this blind thinking can be roughly summarized as his belief that the good years will never end, and the value of assets will continue to rise.

Not to mention the current financial turmoil, even in the case of a good economic situation, a leveraged buyout of tens of billions of dollars can be regarded as a crazy gambling behavior.

The debt is 12.9 billion US dollars, and the ratio of debt to various income is more than ten times. For media companies that rely heavily on advertising revenue, this debt ratio is undoubtedly very heavy, because advertising revenue always fluctuates with the economic situation. And for industries such as newspapers, which are facing a long-term downward trend, this is nothing short of a disaster!"

CEO Eddie twitched the corners of his mouth when he heard it, and he slandered the eloquent editor-in-chief John Nima in his heart, and he was really the 13 people who won 13 Pulitzer Prizes for journalism.

However, the other party's rhetoric is undoubtedly very convincing, and you can see from the expressions on the faces of everyone in the conference room that this group of guys is already eager to get out of the huge pit of the forum company one day earlier and grab Andy Smith's golden big tui.

As the publisher and CEO of the Los Angeles Times, Eddie's ability is still very strong, he wants to have a local tyrant 'dad' more than anyone else, but when it comes to the parent company that is going to file for bankruptcy, he can only pinch his nose and admit it, he knows that he has been greeted by many people as the daughter of the whole family after two consecutive layoffs.

After noticing that the atmosphere in the conference room suddenly became a little weird, everyone looked at him with a hint of meaning, as if they were examining his position as the CEO.

There was a sudden burst in his heart, but the expression on Eddie's face did not change, but his eyes froze, and he made some kind of determination, and said to a person on the side abruptly: "Tompkins, the pension debt of our newspaper has reached 50 million US dollars, and after this bankruptcy application, may... ”

As the head of the newspaper trade union, Tompkins is definitely the most angry one in the newspaper, not only ushered in two 'big purges' in four months, but the laid-off employees complained and complained every day, and more importantly, the surge in pension debts, the bankruptcy application of the parent company, and the continuous reduction of the newspaper's funds made people very worried about the issue of pension distribution.

"Brush!"

Everyone in the conference room looked at Tompkins in unison, none of the people present were idiots, and naturally heard the meaning of the CEO Eddie's words to fan the flames, Tompkins, as the head of the union, was not a fool, but he didn't care whether Eddie was using him at all, anyway, he was originally elected to play against the newspaper owner.

"When it comes to pensions, the union will not ignore it, in this economic environment, the debt has surged, and the parent company is seriously indebted, such a high pension debt, the parent company must give a solution, and the risk cannot be passed on to us!"

"How can the head office have the money to pay off our debts, hehe, they can't even pay their salaries. A sneer suddenly sounded, but no one cared, everyone knew that someone was adding firewood again.

"Not solved? Tompkins sneered and stood up, ignoring the strange expressions on everyone's faces, and slammed the table.

"Then strike!"

The content of the closed-door meeting, all the participants were silent, however, the newspaper still found some strange changes, the whole newspaper atmosphere seems to have suddenly become depressed, only those executives know that a storm about the future of the newspaper has begun to brew!

Just landed at New York's JFK Airport, and Ivana greeted me. Andy, who got in the car and drove to his home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, didn't know that there was a group of people who were holding their breath and preparing to do something in order to hug him.