Upheaval has been a defining characteristic of RDA Holding Co. for the last
three years.
There have been two bankruptcies, the company's revenues have been
cut by more than a half a billion dollars and key business units have been sold
off. Three different CEOs have overseen the changes. RDA is now set to emerge from Chapter 11 in late July with about $100 million in debt. That's down from around $500 million at the time of the latest bankruptcy filing and $2.1 billion less than the first time around.
"If anything had taken away from [our core business] over time, it was just a lack of focus," Guth says. "I think there was an anecdotal view that the publishing sector in general was going to continue to decline and therefore we needed to do other things to offset that. There's nothing wrong with that philosophy—a lot of successful businesses have done that—but in our case, all those other pursuits accelerated the decline."
Part of Guth's strategy has been to divest those ancillary lines of business. Among other changes since he arrived, Everyday with Rachel Ray and Allrecipies.com were sold to Meredith in separate deals, 150 staffers were laid off and it was announced that the company would license its international operations.
The other part of the strategy has been in recalibrating its core.
