Digital boss Matt Crockett and regional CEO Warren Bright depart in APN restructure
Publisher APN News and Media has this morning announced a restructure leading to the departure of its chief development officer Matt Crocket and regional media CEO Warren Bright.
As part of the shakeup the company has also replaced Bright with group operations and procurement director Neil Monaghan.
In a statement to the ASX this morning APN chairman Peter Cosgrove said: “We are committed to our digital ventures and our focus now is to drive the performance of these businesses and link them with other media assets.”
Crocket was responsible for the purchase of a number of online brands such as brandsExclusive, GrabOne and CC Media. Under the new restructure the company will disband its business development office and will be “simplifying the management” of these online brands.
Traditional media business board: if in doubt, fire the guy you who is helping you navigate the path to the future because you don’t understand what he does and are afraid he’ll show you up for being stuck in the old world.
APN are collapsing – Share price down 90 % – circ on all paid title tanking – editorial quality at all time low – a rudderless ship with no one at the helm who knows what to do – watch the birth of the independents as they take market share !
Oh dear. Warren actually seemed like a good operator. The redundancy payouts at APN over the past few years must be getting upwards of $10mil now surely…..add to that a few Vegas trips and the company is spending crucial profit $ on some very strange things.
By the way, when is the next APN international juncket??? Maybe Neil can tell us…
Traditional comments section: if in doubt, criticise everything and everyone because you don’t understand anything about it.
Red Bean, there is no doubt, none whatsoever, APN is sinking. Blind Freddy can see and understand what is happening – as its been sinking for years. $6 share price was not that long ago….
Do you work for APN Red Bean? Please give us some internal perspective as to what is happening.
If the company is sinking then doesn’t it make some sense to remove or part ways with the executives that have steered it into its present state? Why is anyone surprised they have parted ways with their digital guy?
Hi Shamma,
From where I sit it looks like they brought Matt Crockett in with a brief of making acquisitions and creating a digital strategy. As soon as he made the first couple of acquisitions, this startled (some of) the divided owners who were not all on board with that strategy, and the word came down to stop. It’s a mess, but I don;t think he;s the one to blame for it.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
They left their run too late. The time to invest in digital was when their legacy business still generated enough cash to buy time and to make some mistakes. They brought Matt in too late in the piece and they pretty quickly found they didn’t have enough cash to create a standalone digital based business and the board didn’t want to stump up any more cash from their own reserves. This is simply a recognition that they don;t have the means or time to invest in new platforms and need to manage their legacy business for cash while they pursue an exit strategy i.e. trade sale or merger. So, out with the strategists and in with the bankers.
Not saying he’s the one to blame for the woes, but within the digital area but they wrote some pretty big cheques on CC and BrandsExclusive based on future earnings and neither look particularly close to those goals.
It is odd he’d either walk before getting them to where they need to be OR that they’d part ways when both require a lot of work to become real assets.
Word from inside is that Bright was flown back from an overseas holiday to front the board. Whilst his departure is no big surprise to anyone following APN, the choice of Neil Monaghan is a bit of a surprise.
Nice guy, good at making sure you don’t over pay for the pencils and that the trucks have tyres…but CEO? I think the CEO at the top is going to be Brian McCarthy. It has to be somebody who knows media.
Even if it is BM (and I’m a fan), they are headed for a messy end!
They will lose the NZ tax ruling. Revenue in the Qld newspaper division is worse this year than last and no end in sight. To cut $25m in costs to fill the gap in revenue is not achievable without killing more revenue.
They will shoot the site GMs any minute, that’ll save 2 million. The 7 that went with Bright and Crockett is another 2m. How do you find $21m.
Shut Grafton? Warwick? Kills days at the smaller sites? Maybe Monday-Wednesday are digital only? It is fraught with danger and opens the door for a growing competitor.
Feel for those inside, plenty of good guys and gals.
Not before time. Two years ago APN’s regional publishing business was thriving with solid revenue lines, loyal advertisers and audience and an engaged workforce. Enter bright with his “let’s sack half the staff and make those who are left do twice as much” philosophy and the place has imploded. Despite being one of the most diverse media companies in oz/nz APN has also failed dismally at integrating new online acquisitions with existing, strong platforms and this obviously went a long way to costing Chenoweth his job. Really sad stuff because all so avoidable. And Steve… Given brights departure I think it is highly unlikely that Neil will be around for the next Vegas junket
It will be ironic if it takes an experienced media exec to fix this. Have a look at the boards and managements at Ten, Fairfax,APN and their predecessors. Lots of genius, big name types. Lots of consultant types. Lots of overpaid investments. Lots of strategy hype. And lots of red ink.
Lets hope mccarthy or someone like him gets a jersey.
A quick look at a map shows that they have a concentration of print sites in SEQ (and northern NSW). Probably more than they currently need.
My gut says either the Warwick site (which does a lot of commercial, non-APN work) or the Toowoomba one might soon be sold or decommissioned.
Bruce: That’s a pretty specific comment/call. But I think you are right!
There have been rumours about both sites for years but I heard the other day they started moving internal print jobs from Toowoomba to other sites.
Closing one print site would probably save 3-5m as you still have to print them on paper with ink. You don’t also get a 100% head count reduction. I can’t imagine their would be too many buyers of Warwick.
To save $25m will need at least one print site closure, one underperforming paper like Grafton or Warwick and something in the north. I would imagine that APN News Desk is nearly at a stage that would enable a “project century” including big editorial head count loses at each site.
Milton will get touched up, particularly finance.
It’s pretty sad when you do the numbers. If you take an average salary and on costs of $60,000 per head you need to lose minimum 200 to make a fist of it.
Wake Up: I doubt Neil T will last more than a month.
It’s purely a guess, of course, but I reckon a good one. Print sites are expensive, and it doesn’t make sense to have more of them than you strictly need.
Wow, Jarrod those are some very interesting points you make. At what point does the head count reduction need to stop before this impacts too much on the bottom line? Surely the sales teams should be protected as the main income stream has been on a downward spiral for years. But I guess sales people will be let go and accountants hired to reduce costs, why do companies like APN always take the easy way out and reduce costs when they have a sales team – that is given the right resourses and managed better – could increase revenue massively.
And another interesting point mentioned was the part or full closure of some of the underperforming sites. Grafton/Warwick etc would be prime candidates. Anybody on the inside know how sucessful the part closure of Tweed or Coffs has been? Have these sites lost extra advertising $$ because of the reduced publication days?
How easily this whole mess could have been avoided if APN had stuck with the original managment team, however the chopping and changing at the top at all levels the past few years has really buried them as a profitable company.
@ Tim – Mumbrella
Agree that Crockett’s mandate was to drive growth. His focus was M&A as shown by the 3x purchases (online shopping club, daily deals site & digital catalogues)
But I see no evidence of any plan to integrate these into a new product line. Yet he paid a high multiple to acquire 3x controlling stakes. He bought an asset portfolio outside of core capability and had no plan on how to merge. Now whether this guy was playing at being a VC or a media mogul, he still lost. And now the current board have retreated into a ‘digital second’ strategy because they don’t know how to play a hand from the cards they’re holding.
Sure it’s all too Newsosaur to blame any one person. But let’s not pretend this guy did APN any favours.
Cocked it: Have to agree.
Brands Exclusive was a stupid purchase. No retail experience exists inside the company. Sure, you can use your media assets to promote them, but your advertisers might not like it, which is exactly what happened. Blind Freddy could see that happening.
Steve: Unfortunately headcount reductions will happen in all departments. Even if they leave sales departments largely intact, you rip the heart out of sales support and move Hamilton to India or the Philippines and good sales reps will leave and bad ones will stay. Thats how it works. Let’s not pretend APN or any media company is operating in great times. The economy is hard and if you make it hard on reps, they move.
It’s interesting if you compare the past executive leadership teams.
Mark J & co. Stable and Steady, some may say slow to adapt or lacking urgency, but had some good initatives like employment superhighway, etc.
Tait & Co. Big on growing revenue but coincided with the GFC so not that easy to do. Then implement change, change, change and nothing stuck except change and uncertainty, but again not terrible.
Bright & Co. NO IDEA……Seriously to hear this guy ramble on about the long tail and we need to sell 15% more ads, to 15% more people for 15% more money was better than the comedy channel. I hope someone comes on to defend WB and NT. Then we will have a muppet defending muppets.
and now we have Neil Monghan.
Neil M: Close it down, move it to the Phillipines and buy the cheap toilet paper.
I’m hearing reports that today there was mass handouts of “Don’t Come Monday” at APN sites including Advertising Managers across the group.
Anyone able to confirm?