The shrinking New York Times

Involuntary layoffs are likely to follow if the New York Times doesn't get the 100 job cuts it is seeking from a 1,330 person newsroom.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The company announced lucrative buyout packages for its newsroom staff this week, in an effort to get its more senior, better paid journalists to agree to leave the company voluntarily.

Involuntary layoffs are likely to follow if the company doesn't get the 100 job cuts it is seeking from a 1,330 person newsroom. Buyouts are being offered in other departments as well. The cuts are expected to take place by the end of the year.

The company has reduced its headcount by more than half in the last five years. But most of that was due to shedding different parts of the overall business beyond the core New York Times.

The biggest divestiture was its $70 million sale last year of the Boston Globe -- a property it paid $1.1 billion for in 1991.

But the Times (NYT) has also cut jobs from across its business units, while trying to limit the cuts in the newsroom.

Company spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said digital hiring in the last four years lifted total newsroom staffing by about 200 jobs before the latest cuts were announced.

News of the buyouts this week gave a lift to the company's battered stock, which is still down more than 17% so far this year despite the recent bump. But many doubt whether it can really cut its way back to prosperity.

Digital revenue growth losing steam: The paper depends on a premium product for its financial success. It is able to charge top dollar for its print edition, and it's one of the few papers able to charge for its digital content.

The resulting growth in circulation revenue has helped it overcome the steady decline in advertising that has become a cancer in the print media business in recent years.

Circulation revenue jumped nearly 13% after the company instituted a "paywall" for digital readers in 2011. But in the second quarter it reported less than 2% annual growth in circulation revenue, which alarmed investors.

While investors generally liked the news of the latest staff cuts, one industry observer said it raised concerns about the paper's ability to hold onto its premium pricing.

"People who read the Times will pay anything, and they're the high-income, high-education readers advertisers want to reach," said Ed Atorino, analyst with The Benchmark Company. "But 100 less reporters means less content, by definition. Less content will eventually mean less demand. Sooner or later they will be bumping up against the laws of economics."

Industry trends hitting results: The Times company has seen its print circulation fall about a quarter between 2009 and last year, and that slide has continued. It also has cut the size of the print edition, leading to a drop in the amount of newsprint it uses.

Of course the trend of traditional media losing ground to digital is not unique to the New York Times.

Rival News Corp. (NWS) split its company into two last year, separating its papers, including the Wall Street Journal, from its movie studio, broadcast and cable networks that now make up 21st Century Fox (FOX).

Time Warner (TWX), owner of CNN and CNNMoney, spun off Time Inc. (TIME) as a separate company earlier this year and recently announced its own buyout offer for employees of Turner Broadcasting, which includes CNN.

And many newspapers nationwide have closed or cut back, and are either no longer printed every day or available for home delivery.

"They've done better than many papers because they're the Times," said Atorino.

But shares of the New York Times Co. have trailed print rivals such as News Corp. and Gannett (GCI), even with the recent lift from the staff cut announcement. Its earnings are due at the end of the month and analysts are forecasting either a loss for the quarter or, at best, break even results.

First Published: October 3, 2014: 4:01 PM ET

12.08 | 0 komentar | Read More

Stolen Harley returned after 42 years

A stolen Harley-Davidson is returned after 42 years.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

"When the kids asked me if I was going to ride on that, I told them I sure am," Johnson said this week after Customs and Border Protection agents returned the motorcycle, which was stolen 42 years ago.

The 1954 FL Harley-Davidson Hydra-Glide motorcycle was intercepted last month at the Los Angeles/Long Beach seaport, where it was about to be shipped to Australia.

Investigators with the California Highway Patrol discovered that the bike had been stolen from a police officer in North Carolina in 1972.

"My dad would be tickled to get it back if he was still alive," said Johnson, whose father passed away four years ago. "I miss my dad so much. This is like a piece of him is coming back home."

Related: Harley-Davidson unveils its first electric hog

The Harley, worth an estimated $24,000, appeared to be in mint condition. It was green when stolen but was since painted bright yellow. It also has a "trumpet style horn" and a medallion on its front fender commemorating Harley-Davidson's 50th anniversary.

Finding and returning long stolen vehicles are starting to become du jour. Only recently, customs agents returned a 1967 convertible Jaguar XKE to its rightful owner 46 years after it had been stolen. The two-door convertible was discovered in a container that was going to the Netherlands.

The stolen Jaguar that was returned to owner 46 years later

First Published: October 3, 2014: 5:01 PM ET

12.08 | 0 komentar | Read More

CVS sanctioned for faking product size

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

CVS Health (CVS) settled with four California counties and the state's Department of Agriculture after allegations that its packaging didn't accurately represent how much product it contained.

The $225,000 settlement, first reported by Fresno, California's ABC30, covers a few store-brand beauty products, mostly wrinkle creams but also an anti-frizz hair product. The report says the points of contention were alleged false bottoms and sides that improperly exaggerated the amount of product in the container.

Related: No more cigarettes at CVS

The money will mostly go to Fresno, Yolo, Sacramento and Shasta Counties, ABC30 reports. A CVS spokesman confirmed the settlement and said the company would do better going forward.

"While manufacturers generally choose the container size, CVS/pharmacy has agreed to redesign the packaging of certain CVS Brand items," he wrote in an email.

First Published: October 3, 2014: 6:32 PM ET

12.08 | 0 komentar | Read More

The real queen of Silicon Valley

The hot Andreessen Horowitz dinner parties are the brainchild of Margit Wennmachers, an operating partner who could fairly be called the VC firm's secret weapon.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The dinner parties are the brainchild of Margit Wennmachers, an operating partner who could fairly be called the VC firm's secret weapon. The German immigrant, 48, invites reporters, investors and entrepreneurs to her San Francisco home to talk, drink and sup, all off the record. It may be the softest, smoothest marketing pitch in the Bay Area. Or maybe it's not a pitch at all. Reporters love discovering, says Wennmachers. "And discovery is best done breaking bread."

Read more from Ozy: What you never knew about Harvard

For the wonks and techies in Silicon Valley, marketing was once sneered at — that is, when it was thought about at all. But armed with Wennmachers, Andreessen Horwitz has changed all that. Now telling a story about products and companies is considered crucial, both for press and investors. "It's been fascinating to watch," Matt Marshall, founder and editor-in-chief of Venture Beat, says via email of Andreessen Horowitz's swift rise. "[W]hat it has done is nothing short of brilliant. Every single move it makes is orchestrated carefully, to push more PR spin."

Of Wennmachers, he writes, "Margit is about as good as you can get as a PR professional. She's managed to filter out the best players in the valley and put a vise grip on them."

Read more Ozy: How to ace STEM

In person, Wennmachers is extraordinarily self-possessed, a lithe, fashionable woman who speaks four languages — German, English, Spanish and French — and favors Euro-chic designers like Erdem and Brunello Cucinelli. The daughter of a pig farmer in Bruexgen, Germany, she was the shy one in high school but was also considered a "quiet revolutionary." She studied humanities in college but was exposed to the American way of doing business in her first job out of school. She worked for an American tech company based in Germany and was impressed by its culture of transparency and optimism. She started out as the CEO's assistant, but by 25 she was running the European marketing division. It wasn't that young, she recently told the San Francisco Chronicle. "Here, they start coding at 8!"

Or even younger, apparently. She is the single mom of a six-year-old daughter who is already studying programming at school. Wennmachers is an avid hiker and likes to cook, mostly German specialties.

Read more from Ozy: Stuck in traffic? Text your way out

But what she really loves is putting people in touch. In 1997, she cofounded OutCast, a prominent PR agency that focused on tech companies like Yahoo, Facebook and Amazon. (The company was sold in 2005 to British PR powerhouse Next Fifteen for a reported $10-$13 million.) Her OutCast clients included Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen, and in 2010, the two men managed to poach her for their own eponymous firm.

The firm didn't originally have marketing in mind, says Horowitz. But he and Andreessen were so impressed by Wennmachers that they convinced her to join. "She's one of the most important partners that we have," he said. "The thing that we are known for most is how differentiated our network is and how we built it so big and powerful so fast. She's been the architect for that."

In response to his firm's success with marketing, Horowitz says other VC firms have jumped to hire marketing execs, too. But that's "really silly" says Horowitz, comparing her influence on Andreessen Horowitz to Steve Jobs' on Apple. "It's like saying he's a designer; let's hire a designer. She's not a marketing person; she's Margit."

He continues, "The thing that gets lost on people about Margit is that she's more accurately described as an entrepreneur and as a CEO than a marketing person."

Read more from Ozy: Is Alzheimer's brain diabetes?

Her clients agree. "Far beyond the PR reputation she has, she's been a strategic advisor," says Kakul Srivastava, founder and CEO of Tomfoolery, one of Andreessen Horowitz's seed investments and one of three companies Wennmachers snagged for Andreessen Horowitz. Srivastava meets with Wennmachers monthly. "Her feedback ranges quite a bit from product feedback to strategy feedback. She's been an incredible connector for us," she says.

So, is Wennmachers everyone's darling with never a misstep? Of course not. Venture Beat's Marshall said that while he admires Wennmachers, he doesn't "particularly like everything she's done." He adds, "Sometimes her hardball tactics can backfire." He cites a story where Andreessen Horowitz missed out on an estimated $100 million by declining to invest more in Instagram, because of a conflict of interest with another company in its portfolio, PicPlz.

"We called them, and Margit declined to allow us to get comment from them," he says. "Then the story got bigger, and everyone else (other media) jumped in, and they eventually had to address it, but it just got worse because they had declined to talk."

Read more from Ozy: What millennials want in the workplace

Nevertheless, Wennmachers and Andreessen Horowitz ended up spinning the story into how loyal they are to companies they invest in, even if that might not benefit them monetarily.

Wennmachers compares her job to combining the TV shows The West Wing, Scandal and PBS's science series Nova. She's constantly balancing decision-making, putting out small fires, crafting stories and dealing with innovation and technology.

Her own secret weapon might be how she has adopted the United States as a second country. She refers to immigrants as "underrated," even while demurring that the notion might sound self-serving coming from her. For immigrants, she says, everything is an upside. "You're not entitled, you're not expecting anything and you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. This is what makes the United States special. When you come here, once you get your green card or citizenship, they really want you here. They do their vetting and then they say, welcome and go nuts. Go to town. No other country does that."

The United States has welcomed Margit Wennmachers, and in return she has spun quite a web of talent around Silicon Valley, cultivating strong ties and connecting power players in technology along the way. You can almost see the spin, spin, spin.

First Published: October 2, 2014: 5:05 PM ET

12.08 | 0 komentar | Read More

GoPro angers investors with charity gift

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

Sounds great, but there's one catch that's angered investors, who sent shares down 7% Thursday.

JPMorgan, the IPO's underwriter, is letting Woodman's charity sidestep a rule that prohibits insiders from selling stock within the first 180 days of a company's IPO, which could potentially send shares lower.

The bank made an exception and will let the charity sell the shares starting Friday, Oct. 3. That's nearly two months before the lockup period expires late November, which is when GoPro (GPRO) managers and directors can start selling.

GoPro's head honcho just announced his new charity, called the Jill + Nicholas Woodman Foundation, on Wednesday. A press release says that details about its mission will be announced "at a later date."

Related: Is GoPro becoming a movement?

Shares of the extreme-camera maker closed Thursday at $85.40, well above its June IPO price of $24. That makes the gift from Woodman and his wife worth $450 million. GoPro didn't say whether the charity will sell its shares immediately.

JPMorgan (JPM) and GoPro declined to comment.

The gift represents a small share of Woodman's holdings; at the time of the IPO he held about 52.4 million shares, according to SEC documents.

GoPro stumbled a bit in early August when it issued its first earnings report, which failed to meet investors' lofty expectations. But the stock has gone nearly vertical since the last week in August, until Thursday.

First Published: October 2, 2014: 5:28 PM ET

12.08 | 0 komentar | Read More

JPMorgan: 76 million customers hacked

More than 80 million JPMorgan account holders had their information hacked.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The revelation follows news back in August that hackers had infiltrated seven of the country's largest banks, using sophisticated malware to burrow into their computer systems and manipulate records.

At JPMorgan (JPM), the hackers got contact information for 76 million households and 7 million small businesses, including names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses, as well as "internal JPMorgan Chase information relating to such users."

Related: What you need to know about the big bank hack

But the bank said that the hackers didn't get any account information -- account numbers, user IDs, dates of birth or Social Security numbers -- and that it hasn't seen "any unusual customer fraud related to this incident."

"The Firm continues to vigilantly monitor the situation and is continuing to investigate the matter," JPMorgan said in a securities filing, adding that it is cooperating with law enforcement.

Although it appears that the hackers haven't been able to access bank accounts, they could still cash in by selling email addresses and other personal information to spammers.

The source of this summer's attack still isn't clear. Some analysts have pointed to hackers Russia, though the evidence is only circumstantial.

Related: FBI investigating hack on JPMorgan

Hackers from Russia and eastern Europe are often top FBI suspects in cyberattacks. The timing of the hack raised suspicions given the mounting tensions between Russia and the West over Ukraine and economic sanctions.

In a letter to shareholders earlier this year, JPMorgan said it planned to deploy over 1,000 people and budget $250 million annually to focus on cyber security.

First Published: October 2, 2014: 6:07 PM ET

12.08 | 0 komentar | Read More

Federal workers lose big by pulling out of low-cost retirement plans

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The Thrift Savings Plan, used by millions of federal workers, is like a 401(k), except it's a lot cheaper. Last year it charged an average expense ratio of a mere 0.03%. That means just $3 in fees for $10,000 in savings, or $30 for a $100,000 portfolio.

IRAs or employer-sponsored 401(k)s typically charge more than 10 times that amount.

Nevertheless, federal workers are rolling billions in savings out of the low-fee plan when they leave their jobs, even though they don't have to.

Last year nearly half (45%) of participants who left federal service in 2012 had withdrawn all of their savings -- nearly $10 billion collectively.

Workers on government message boards cite a number or reasons for leaving, including frustration with the thrift plan's limited investment options and strict withdrawal rules.

Related: What I gave up to save $1 million

But some retirement savings experts suspect that a heavy sales pitch by private financial firms and advisers might also be a factor.

Gregory Long, the executive director of the agency that runs the thrift plan, wrote in a memo that he thinks some federal workers and retirees may be "swayed by the financial industry's marketing efforts" to roll their money out of the low-cost plans into higher-cost IRAs.

Spokespeople for Thrift Savings Plan did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

John Turner, an economist and director of the Pension Policy Center and a former federal worker himself, said he became troubled when he heard of friends who had pulled out of their funds only to pay thousands in fees.

As an experiment, Turner called up major IRA providers and asked for advice, explaining he was a former government employee with savings in the thrift plan. Only one firm acknowledged he could do better by staying with the plan's super low fees, while the rest all encouraged an IRA rollover.

Related: Is this retirement move right for you?

CNNMoney asked FutureAdvisor, an online investment advisor, to run some numbers to compare fees and investment returns:

FutureAdvisor created three sample portfolios to show how much more savers can pay in fees if they roll their money out of the Thrift Savings Plan.

Let's say a worker has $100,000 invested in the Thrift Savings Plan. Even if she rolled her money into the cheapest comparable ETFs on the market, she would still spend $54 more in fees each year despite getting similar returns.

If the worker were to roll that money into an IRA, invested in mutual funds with average fees of 0.74%, she would pay an extra $716, FutureAdvisor found.

And if she opted for a pricier portfolio, say one with fees of 2.4%, she could shell out more than $2,300 in extra fees in a single year.

"Over years, it's a substantial difference in what you end up with," Turner said. "It's not a trivial issue."

Related: Retirement plan providers misleading savers

To be sure, participants in the Thrift Savings Plan, which has five main funds, can find more investment options in private IRAs.

Yet Turner said the thrift plan offers enough stock and bond index funds that track domestic and international markets to give most savers what they need.

Military veteran Ryan Guina, who writes a military-focused personal finance blog, agreed.

"Unless they're advanced investors, I think they should leave their funds in the TSP because it's simple and it's easy enough that most investors can do it and do it well," he said.

FutureAdvisor, in its analysis for CNNMoney, found that typical investors can almost always get higher returns from the government plan compared to similar investments, especially after fees are taken into account.

Last year, for example, the thrift plan outperformed the sample high-cost portfolio by 3%.

So how does the government thrift plan keep fees so low? It partly subsidizes plan expenses with revenue from loans taken from the plan and forfeitures from employees who leave before fully vesting -- a practice termed "quite unique" by FutureAdvisor Chief Investment Officer Simon Moore.

"They are able to drive costs below market value, which is great for their investors," Moore said. "A corporation wouldn't do that."

First Published: October 1, 2014: 6:55 PM ET

12.08 | 0 komentar | Read More