by Adam Hartung | Apr 24, 2007 | Defend & Extend, General, In the Swamp, Leadership, Lock-in
When you can predict behavior in business it is the first step to taking competitive advantage. When you can predict competitors, you know what to do to beat them. And you can take steps as an investor, employee, supplier or customer to decide how you’ll interact with them in your own best interest.
I blogged several days ago that the buyout of Tribune Company would force them to continue taking actions operate their Success Formula More, Better, Faster, Cheaper rather than addressing changing market factors. Even though it is certain this behavior will continue to hurt performance because that Success Formula is woefully out of date and not meeting market needs in world where news travels via the web. The debt load alone would create that Lock-in since it dramatically limits options. Further, the leaders last year were manipulating results (all very legal I’m sure) in order to maximize their bonuses and mask bad business performance.
What have we seen this week? On Friday the Chicago Tribune reported (see article here) that the company cash flow was off 12%. Of course! The leadership did everything possible to goose up cash flow at the end of the last year in order to maximize bonuses and attract a buyer for the company. It was easy to predict that cash flow would decline, and results would lag peers even in the struggling media industry. Then today Tribune Company announced it is cutting jobs across all its properties (see article here.) Of course, it has to cut costs to protect the old Success Formula. (When what the leadership needs to do is invest in internet projects to transform the company.)
Tribune once made a lot of money. Then the market changed as people moved from newspapers to the internet. But Tribune company did not adjust to that market change nearly rapidly or powerfullly enough. The company tried to tweak it’s Success Formula with cost cutting exercises while hoping the business would return to its prior state. Now, it’s More Of The Same while management keeps hoping that the past will return. But it won’t happen. And things will keep getting worse as cost cuts lead to further problems with the paper and fewer readers and fewer advertisers leading to more cost cuts – a vicious cycle. The business needs to change remarkably toward the internet – but now leadership and ownership is so Locked-in to the old Success Formula they can’t. They’ve refused to Disrupt and there is no White Space. And so Tribune Company is becoming very predictable. That’s bad for the employees, suppliers and new debt-holders. Good for competitors.
by Adam Hartung | Apr 19, 2007 | Defend & Extend, General, In the Swamp, Lock-in
In sports we talk about a player looking to go right and then going left and call that a "fake-out." We’re seeing the business equivalent today at Tribune company. In their own paper the company featured an article on a new "hyperlocal" web site being rolled out that is supposed to indicate a new approach for Tribune Company (see article here). This a a fake-out.
On the face of it, the new web sites may look like White Space and therefore a good thing. But the reality is that Tribune is incredibly Locked-in to its outdated Success Formula – and as I’ve blogged they are loading up on debt which will insure they remain Locked-in. This venture lacks 3 critical criteria for it to be considered White Space:
1 – the company has not Disrupted any of its old Lock-ins. They have not admitted that the Success Formula is outdated, and they have not attacked any of the Lock-ins keeping the company doing what it has always done. Without an attack on the Lock-in this kind of venture will soon run into all kinds of obstacles (from editorial to ad sales) and find itself without nurturing or any chance of success.
2 – the company has not committed any significant resources to this effort. They admitted it is only a small test. They have no promises to see it through to any kind of success, and have said they have concerns about how it will even work.
3 – this project is not something in the front of the Rapids which they can get behind big and hope to change the company. Cars.com or CareerBuilder.com are examples of things in the Rapids they could move into White Space and use to change Tribune company’s Success Formula. This project is so small and market-early that it is in the Wellspring and unable to make any real impact on results or the operations of Tribune.
It’s not just claiming you have a White Space project that makes it true. You first have to Disrupt your Lock-ins to give it a chance for success, you have to commit resources to see the project through, and you have to pick projects that are big enough to push your business back into the Rapids.
by Adam Hartung | Apr 18, 2007 | Defend & Extend, General, In the Swamp, Lock-in
Readers of this blog know I think WalMart (see chart here) is horribly Locked-in and thus well into the Swamp. As the chart shows, this has left them with maudlin performance (at best.) I recently posted on their fiasco firing the ad agency as part of firing their own advertising director in an effort to preserve that Lock-in and outdated Success Formula.
Today we learn (see article here) that WalMart’s fired agency, DraftFCB, is going to get the KMart account. This is a sharp move for Kmart. After WalMart and DraftFCB spend millions to study the discount retail marketplace, WalMart walks away from that research in order to preserve its own beliefs. So, KMart now gets all that research for free. And it is a very smart competitive move. KMart is using WalMart’s Lock-in to their advantage. And any time you do that, you improve your odds of succeeding.
Of course KMart is part of Sears Holdings (see chart here), and I’ve blogged often at how Locked-in Sears is. So I’m really not that optimistic for KMart. I think Eddie Lambert, Chairman at Sears Holdings probably took this move because he thinks he can save a few bucks. And, DraftFCB is famous in its industry for having some of the best cost justification work there is, which appeals to Mr. Lambert’s cost reduction Lock-ins. Nonetheless, it is a clever move that takes advantage of a competitor’s Lock-in, and any business that wants to succeed should look for such opportunities.
by Adam Hartung | Apr 16, 2007 | General, In the Swamp, Lock-in
Those blog readers from the U.S. could not miss the media bruhaha this week over Don Imus. He was fired for saying some outrageous things on the radio.
Don Imus is a self-proclaimed "shock jock". Don made a living for over a decade by saying outrageous things to public listeners of his radio show. He made a fortune, well over $1,000,000 per year personally and multiples of that for his producers and syndicators.
So, what happened? He created a Success Formula all around being outrageous. And the more outrageous he was, the more it appeared people listened, and the more advertisers wanted his show, and the more money he and his network (CBS) made. Don Imus spent 10 years building this Success Formula, and Locking it in. He was succeeding with this outrageousness, and his producers succeeded, and CBS succeeded and all the affiliate stations that aired his show succeeded. So, they kept promoting outrageous behavior. And, as more people listened, even very well known, very famous, very successful people appeared on his show. They leveraged Don Imus’ success to give them access to more people and increase their awareness and success. That’s what a Success Formula is all about. People succeed by doing more of what they always did. And they Lock it in.
But then, the market shifted. Not clearly. Not obviously. Not with an announcement on the front page of the New York Times. But public sentiment shifted about "shock radio." We could see the signs. Howard Stern and his producer (Clear Channel Communications) were severely fined by the FCC for things he said. The pressure became so great Howard was forced to go from public radio (called terrestrial radio now) to pay radio (called satellite radio.) And we could see that there were increasing negative articles appearing about off-color comments by everyone from Stern colorful characters like Rush Limbaugh. But Don Imus and his producers ignored the signs of this market shift and continued to push their Success Formula.
Then, last week, it all came down. Mr. Imus said something that got under the skin of too many people. In a week, his sponsors (advertisers that paid for him to be on radio) refused to support him any longer. His revenue dried up, and he was fired from his show.
Why did this happen? Because he (and his producer and his station CBS) were so Locked-in to the Success Formula, which was working, that they ignored the signals of market shifts. They kept right on going until they fell off the proverbial cliff. That’s what happens to Locked-in businesses. Too often, they work that Success Formula right up until it fails. Rarely do we see an example that is so dramatic and quick. But now, we have a very good example of the risk of following your Success Formula and ignoring market Challenges and shifts.
by Adam Hartung | Apr 11, 2007 | Defend & Extend, In the Swamp, Leadership, Lifecycle, Lock-in
Today Citigroup announced it intends to dramatically overhaul operations (see stock chart here). The company will cut 17,000 jobs as it strives to remove $1.2B in expenses. Citigroup says it is doing this in order to grow. Huh?
Setting the stage: Citigroup is the country’s largest financial institution. Until the last few years when oil prices drove up profit for oil companies, Citigroup was the most profitable company in the world. But the last few years it’s profit growth has not kept pace with competitors such as J.P. Morgan and Bank of America (see full article here). Several stock analysts have charged Citigroup with not keeping up its competitiveness, despite pioneering much of what is most successful in the industry today. Expenses have risen at a 9% clip, which has been faster than revenue at 6%. Quotes from Jim Huquet at money manager at Great Companies reflect the consensus view, "They are moving in the wrong direction, and probably going to end up trailing chief rivals…Our concern is that the company really doesn’t have a good sense of where it’s heading..they need someone in charge with a bigger vision…[asset management] is a very profitable.. it provides ocmplexities to management…key rivals have been able to work through those issues…They talk about cost-cutting and stratetgic planning as if they’re coming up with some huge revelations…well-managed businesses do that just like breathing…managing costs and growing revenue aren’t luxuries."
The key player is Chief Executive Charles Prince. Mr. Prince is a a lawyer, and when he was appointed many people thought his background appropriate for dealing with compliance issues that became very important after 9/11/01 and passage of both the Patriot Act and Sarbanes-Oxley. But now, Citigroup is facing a serious Market Challenge. Its competitors have begun copying several of its successful businesses and products, and applying their own innovations to operate those businesses more profitably. Citigroup needs to adjust to these changing industry forces that have impinged its profits. Citigroup needs to revitalize the innovation that has been a cornerstone of its long-term success.
What did Mr. Prince and Citigroup do? Like I said above, announced a 17,000 person layoff. That’s about 5% of the workforce (across the board, of course.) Citigroup will ship a lot of this work offshore – with Poland an apparent beneficiary (see article here.) They also intend to centralize purchasing supplies and services. Now remember, Citigroup isn’t making physical product where purchasing is central to manufacturing. We’re literally talking about buying paperclips, staplers and computer programmers. Nonetheless, centralization is a core plank of the plan as they hope to move global purchasing from 65% of spending to 80% by year-end and 100% by end of 2009. Let’s see, this is the CEO of a DJIA company taking on a significant market Challenge by focusing on how the company buys supplies!?! The COO said "That’s the kind of philosophical change we’re looking at enforcing throughout the company." (see full article here.)
Today, financial services is a digital business. The work is all bits and bytes for traders and lenders, and digital documents for borrowers and lenders. So, naturally, Citigroup is cutting $375million in technology this year and about $550million additionally each year through 2009. The company is closing 40 Smith Barney offices and, according to the COO "closing down facilities where we have excess space, closing down some small businesses that we have been in for a long time….Because of the way we were structured internationally, there was a lot of duplication between global product capabilities and capabilities at a sector level and then in a regio an dthen in a country..we were able to take out a lot of those duplicate capabilities." I’m reminded of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous line "needless consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds."
Citigroup has not hit a growth stall, but it has been impacted by rising competition. The company is at an important junction. It needs to deal with serious marketplace Challenges being wrought by well-funded, smart and large competitors. And, it is taking action to Lock-in its old Success Formula! Rather than dealing with the market Challenge the top brass is focusing on The Problem (the earnings). Instead of addressing the lack of performance in White Space projects, they are cutting costs and killing off these projects. Citigroup isn’t using innovation to deal with the market and get back on track – the leadership is slashing costs to short-term beef up profits and in the process Locking-in even further the Success Formula which has recently seen weaker results. They aren’t stepping up to maintain their position as global leader, but instead falling back into Defend & Extend management in hopes they can recapture old profit rates.
Of course, this plan completely ignores the competition. While Citigroup is busy with cost cuts, BofA and JPM will keep marching forward with their customer acquisition and new product programs. BofA and JPM will continue to push to lower their costs, greatly nullifying the supposed benefits of Citigroup’s efforts. In fact Joseph Dickerson of Atlantic Equities believes BofA is likely to hire many of the Citigroup ousted folks to staff its rapidly growing European expansion! While Citigroup is looking in the rear view mirror and trying to catch past results by whacking away at its old Success Formula, Jamie Dimon at JPM is whacking away at their customer base while matching their cost model – and then some.
Turning to Defend & Extend Management practices is absolutely the wrong thing for Citigroup to do. The company isn’t in dire straits. It’s not facing bankruptcy or being attacked like GM. But Citigroup did take its eye of the marketplace while focusing on the compliance matters (by the way, everyone in the industry had to step up to the same compliance issues Citigroup faced). This has allowed a re-invention gap to develop. Instead of turning back to the marketplace with White Space projects, many of which already exist, to rebuild the Success Formula for better results the CEO and COO are turning inward, and slashing costs to Defend & Extend the problematic business. After this enormous write-off we may see a few quarters of improved results (or maybe not), but long-term this is definitely not a good move for shareholders, bondholders and employees.
by Adam Hartung | Apr 8, 2007 | Defend & Extend, General, In the Swamp, Leadership, Lock-in
March auto results came out last week. (See article here)
Toyota sold 12% more than a year ago. Honda’s U.S. sales rose 11%. Nissan’s rose 8%. Hyundai and Kia also posted increases. GM sales fell 4%. Ford sales fell 9%. Chrysler sales fell 5%.
What’s interesting is the comments made by the U.S. manufacturers. GM said sales were off because of "planned reductions in sales to rental fleets." Ford said they also suffered from declining rental fleet sales, but they are dependent upon big-vehicle (SUV and truck) sales and the F-Series saw a 15 percent sales decline. And, of course, last year saw record sales for these vehicles so this month should be ignored. They also seemed to miss that sales of Toyota’s full-size truck sales quadrupled (that’s 4x) in the month.
Defend & Extend management reacts to problems by pretending the problems don’t exist, or saying that there’s an explanation indicating the problem isn’t real. Avoiding the problem is a common reaction to problems for D&E managers.
GM, Ford and Chrysler are loaded with D&E managers more intent upon prolonging the Success Fomulas than dealing with the market Challenges. Meanwhile, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai and Kia are selling more cars. When a Success Formula no longer produces positive results it needs to change. But Defend & Extend managers are unwilling to admit it. And until they do, it makes competing much easier for the small market players.
by Adam Hartung | Apr 8, 2007 | Defend & Extend, General, In the Swamp, Leadership, Lock-in
There are lots of ways to Lock-in a Success Formula, and one of the best is compensation. If the Board of Directors, or management, wants to make sure that Defend & Extend management flourishes, all it has to do is compensate people to do what they’ve always done.
We’ve seen this tactic executed well at the Tribune Company (see chart here). As I’ve blogged recently, Tribune has done nothing for shareholders for years (check the chart if you have any doubt). And now it’s moving forward on a leveraged buy-out that’s sure to leave it no cash for any new initiatives, despite incredibly fierce market Challenges from new internet players. As was recently stated by the soon-to-be Chairman Sam Zell, he doesn’t even care of if cash flow goes up, he just doesn’t want it to go down (see full quote here.) Well, he can hope for that unlikely outcome – but it’s not the point of this blog.
Rather, this blog is about the compensation for the senior team at the Tribune. According to the Chicago Tribune newspaper (see article here), top management is being rewarded very healthily for this deal. The Chairman is getting not only his $1M salary, but a bonus almost 5x his previous. And, he’s getting big guarantees of future pay and bonus for 3 years. Most of the management team will, in fact, get huge severance payments no matter how the future turns out for the business.
Tribune Chairman FitzSimmons is a lawyer by training. So what did his personal Success Formula tell him to do when the market shifted and the internet started driving down revenues and profits? Instead of trying to fix the business, he opted to sell it! For a lawyer, a legal solution seems lots better than a business one. And, to make sure he got everyone on board to do a deal, he tied compensation to creating one. As the article points out, for the last year his bonus was largely tied to increasing cash flow – not to finding new revenue sources, or finding new advertisers, or developing a strategy to compete. No, it was tied to generating cash. So, he and his team kept up the pressure to CUT COSTS. And through that, he pumped up the cash flow in order to make an acquisition more palatable and find a buyer. The compensation wasn’t tied to dealing with market needs, but rather to Defending & Extending the broken Success Formula, and finding a buyer to take it over.
Now we can look to the future. The vey top management of Tribune will share in approximately $650million of bonuses if the company can pay off the $13billion of debt the company will hold post-transaction (see article here). Once again, compensation wll drive the Lock-in to doing nothing new, and instead continue the cost cutting to D&E the failing Success Formula.
Suppliers, shareholders, bondholders and the consumers of newspapers in Chicago, L.A. and elsewhere will all suffer as the Tribune continues to be raided for more cash to dig out of this new debt avalanche. But the people who made the decisions are getting hefty sums. And it just goes to show the power of compensation as Lock-in. No risk was taken of possibly saving the business – only cutting costs from a horribly broken Success Formula. Good luck Mr. Zell. And to all of us who have depended on the Tribune Company.
by Adam Hartung | Apr 4, 2007 | General, In the Swamp, Innovation, Lifecycle, Openness
I’ve lived in Chicago many years. And anyone who’s ever worked in the Loop (that’s the downtown area) is familiar with the guys running around in the brightly colored sport coats. You see them on the street every week day, impervious to hot, cold and rain, usually (it seemed) with a cigarette. These were the floor traders from the Board of Trade. "Heart attack job," most of us would think, and say to our colleagues, as we watched these runners dealing with customers and their orders.
But these folks are disappearing quickly. Computer trading has practically replaced the pits for a preponderence of trading volume. And the rug was pulled out from under people who practiced what was a very skilled, but very limited, occupation. What do you do when you have a highly specialized Success Formula and suddenly there’s no need for it?
You can read about what some of these former traders are now doing here. Market Challenges don’t just affect companies and industries. Technology and new competitors don’t just hit businesses. Individuals, and their personal Success Formulas are impacted by Challenges as well. And when that happens, what’s critical is that we use personal Disruptions to find White Space for our future.
Very few of these old traders have turned into "screen traders." The skills for success are very different trading on a computer versus a pit. And for most of these people, their identity was tied to more than a title – it was tied to the strategies and tactics used in the activity of being a pit trader. Their Success Formula suddenly had a lot less value. For some, this signaled retirement – the personal equivalent of shutting down operations. Others have taken up screen trading, but at far lower volumes and with less satisfaction (monetarily and personally.) They are trying to find a way to Defend & Extend their old Success Formula – but it isn’t going too well (as we might expect). And others have Disrupted themselves and moved on to roles as salespeople and restauranteurs. It’s this latter group that is now finding the most fulfillment in their lives, because they have moved themselves into personal White Space and are developing a new Success Formula.
It’s personally rough when your Success Formula needs changing. But we are no more immune to the impacts of a dynamic world, and the affect it has on labor, than are businesses. Succeeding in this dynamic world increasingly requires that we keep our eyes scanning for Challenges, that we practice Disrupting our lives to make sure we don’t become too "comfortable and cozy," and finding ways to insert White Space in our lives. Places to experiment with new ideas that we can potentially use to keep our careers, and lives, in our control and flourishing – instead of waking up wondering "Where’s the Rug"?
When was the last time you took a college class? The last time you explored how to turn your hobby into a job? Interviewed someone who walked away from a job to something totally different for insights on how she did it? Discussed with your spouse squirreling away significant funds as "walk away money"? Checked on the value of your house not to get more spending money, but to finance a career change? Attended a networking meeting not looking for a job, but just to hear about what other people do? Where’s the White Space in your life?
by Adam Hartung | Apr 4, 2007 | Disruptions, General, In the Swamp, Leadership, Lock-in
The Chicago Tribune on-line published an interview with new owner Sam Zell. You can see full article here, but parts are worth repeating:
Q: How do you get your information? Do you read newspapers? Do you read online?
Zell: I’ve never read online. I don’t have a Blackberry. I read five newspapers a day, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, LA Times, Financial Times. And I read everything. I read Forbes, Fortune, Business Week.
The new leader of a business who’s very viability is threatened by a new technology does not use it. And we’re to expect he’s prepared for the Market Challenge facing Tribune?
Q: Is it OK for a (top) manager to say, ‘I don’t want to do what you want me to do?’
Zell: No. He has the opportunity. He has the job. Whatever the terms of the job are, he has to live by them. All I can tell you is that, I am your boss and I tell you to do something that is not unethical, but is in line with some big corporate program or directive or philosophy, you’ve got a choice. You can play or you can go work for somebody else…Everybody’s entitled to an opinion. But once you’ve chosen to work with somebody and the lines of the story are clear, I don’t know how you could operate a business if you lay out a strategic plan and then have 20,000 people opt out.
Does this sound like a leader prepared to use White Space in order to find a solution to the thorny market Challenges which have led the Tribune into a 5 year slide?
Q: In the newspaper business, raising revenue means either raising advertising rates or raising circulation or a combination of both. At first blush, which of those makes more sense. How do you do that?
Zell: This is for sure an amateur guess at this point. But I would think the biggest single issue is circulation and circulation penetration. And I think the issue is what if, how do we do this, what’s our cpm? And how can we lower that cpm to make us more competitive with other forms of media. Those are the kinds of questions that I think are relevant. I think the answer is probably we have to find ways to increase circulation and to increase penetration.
Let’s see, the biggest issue is circulation, and that is down because more people, especially young people, are getting news from places other than newspapes (especially the web). And the new leader doesn’t use the web, or even a Blackberry. So how’s he planning to increase circulation? Does he think Tribune has been ignoring this problem the last 5 years? Is he aware of some "silver bullet" for newspaper circulation problems that isn’t known to people at Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, et.al.?
Q: But the ESOP isn’t going to have a seat on the board. Why not?
Zell: The idea was that two of the independents would be run by the ESOP. But in the end, it was all about alignment of interests, and nothing else matters. I’m putting $315 million into this deal, cash.
Sounds pretty clear who’s in charge here. The 65 year old guy that reads 5 newspapers a day (how many people do that? how many under 40?) and doesn’t use the web. And he’s not exactly open to ideas from the employees, who ostensibly own the company but have no representation.
Sam Zell has hooked his wagon to the Tribune management team that has not addressed the market Challenges for the last several years. He is comfortably blind to these Challenges. He’s going to use $7.2billion of other people’s money (bond holders) to try and get a return on his $315million. As a real estate magnate, such use of leverage fits his personal Success Formula. But the Tribune is not just a building on Michigan Avenue. Customers and revenues are falling, and there’s not a limited amount of news availability – like there is land.
Defend & Extend Management is planned at Tribune Company. And that means more cost cuts and further erosion in the business. Where’s Steve Case (former CEO of AOL) when you most need him? At least he knows how to use the internet.
bu
by Adam Hartung | Apr 2, 2007 | Disruptions, In the Swamp, In the Whirlpool, Leadership, Lifecycle
Imagine this: you’re in an industry that hasn’t changed much in 100 years. For the last 5 years the number of customers has been declining, as have revenues. Your long-time users are aging and younger potential users say they have little interest in your product. User interviews regularly say your business is out of date. And new technology exists which completely obsoletes your product. Would you find the answer to your dilemma in loading your company up with a HUGE amount of debt while selling off your most profitable assets?
That is of course the situation at the Tribune Company (see chart here), owner of The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Cubs and 25 television stations. If you ever wanted to know when a company moves from the Swamp into the Whirlpool, this is the time for the Tribune. The Tribune Company has been horribly Locked-in to a failing Success Formula with declining results for years. Now it is going to make any alternatives impossible by cranking up the debt load while selling the Cubs and other assets that are profitable and have potential for future growth. Instead of using White Space to find a new Success Formula, which would require more understanding and success on the web, the Tribune is moving to Defend & Extend it’s dying newspaper business! (See article on company sale here.)
The Tribune’s newspaper business is in decline as readers abandon traditional print news for the web, and advertisers are following the subscribers. So not only is the company selling off the Cubs and its investments in growing targeted television, but it is adding $7Billion of new debt (and yes, it’s keeping all the old debt) in order to buy back all the outstanding equity. Yes, they are ADDING debt almost equal to the entire oustanding market value of the company ($8billion). Shades of Michael Milkin and the Junk Bond craze! What paper equity remains will be in an ESOP. But for $320million (that 4% of the new debt added) billionaire Sam Zell gets a warrant to own 40% of the equity should this ever work out. That $320M is less than 1% of the $39billion Sam just recently got for selling his REIT business – so you could say for him this represents a relatively small portfolio investment in a long shot. If Tribune survives, his $.32B becomes worth $3.2B – or 10x return (see MarketWatch article here).
And of course all of this is for a valuation that is only half what the business was worth in 2000, and only 60% of its value as recently as 2004. But that of course reflects the market Challenges which face the Tribune going forward. Challenges completely ignored in this crazy financing scheme.
Meanwhile, the employees of the Tribune now get to spend all their energy looking for yet MORE cost cuts – after 5 years of cost cutting – in order to service this staggering debt load. Just what you need in a situation where you missed the new technology boat. They now have no resources for creating and managing any White Space to find a new Success Formula. Amidst these financial machinations, the newspapers have turned over the publisher at the LATimes and several leading editors in just the last year (see latest article on editor resigning in protest here) demonstrating the disarray inside the business.
The forecast here is not hard to make. I live in Chicago and read the Chicago Tribune. It, as well as The LA Times and other Tribune-owned newspapers have a great history and many Pulitzer Prizes to their credit. But that was the past. If you are an investor, or an employee, or thinking about being a bondholder in this new enterprise I would be looking for a far better future than is promised at Tribune Company.
