Verso Paper Reports 2012 & Q4 Results

Verso Paper Corp. Reports Fourth Quarter and Year-End 2012 Results: 
Verso's net sales for the fourth quarter of 2012 decreased $89.3 million, or 19.8%, compared to the fourth quarter of 2011, reflecting a 17.0% decline in total sales volume, which was driven by the closure of three paper machines late last year and the closure of the Sartell mill in the third quarter of this year, as well as a 3.4% decrease in the average sales price per ton for all of our products. Verso's gross margin was 14.0% for the fourth quarter of 2012 compared to 12.6% for the fourth quarter of 2011.
Verso reported net income of $25.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2012, or $0.48 per diluted share, which included $47.4 million of net gains from special items, or $0.90 per diluted share, primarily due to proceeds from the insurance settlement related to the fire and explosion at our Sartell mill.

Verso had a net loss of $67.9 million, or $1.29 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2011, which included $51.5 million of charges from special items, or $0.98 per diluted share.

Verso's net sales for 2012 decreased $247.9 million, or 14.4%, compared to 2011, reflecting an 11.1% decrease in volume for all of our products, which was driven by the shutdown of three paper machines late last year and the closure of the Sartell mill in the third quarter of this year, as well as a 3.7% decrease in sales prices compared to 2011.

China Chengtong Takes Over MCC

China Chengtong Holdings' total pulp and paper capacity will reach 3.9 million tonnes/yr after it takes over the Metallurgical Corporation of China's (MCC) pulp and paper business.
The two parties signed an agreement on February 28, which will see MCC transfer its wholly-owned subsidiary MCC Paper to China Chengtong without cost.
But the plan still needs further approvals from the central government. 
Both MCC and China Chengtong are giant state-owned companies directly under the administration of the Chinese government.
MCC Paper has a total capacity of more than 1.5 million tonnes/yr of pulp and paper at its many subsidiaries in China.

Direct Mail Tops In ROI

Direct Mail Tops In ROI, Say B2C Marketers; Email Delivers for B2B: The Target Marketing 2013 Media Usage survey finds direct mail delivers the strongest ROI for B2C customer acquisition and retention; Email deemed tops amongst B2B marketers.

Time Warner Ends Talks, Will Spin Off Magazines

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/fate-of-four-time-inc-magazines-are-an-issue-in-talks-with-meredith/

Time Warner Ends Time Inc. Sales Talks with Meredith, Announces Spinoff Instead CEO Laura Lang to step down.
After weeks of reported negotiations, Time Warner has abruptly ended talks to combine Time Inc. titles with Meredith into a new company and is instead announcing that it will spin off Time Inc. as a separate, publicly traded company. The separation is expected to be finished by the end of the year.

In the meantime, Time Inc. CEO Laura Lang has decided to step down following the transaction.  
Time Inc. Spinoff Has a Bumpy Road Ahead:  Time Warner has decided, in the wake of talks breaking down with Meredith Corp. over a proposed spinoff company that would house a combination of the two companies' magazine brands, to form a separate, publicly-traded company on its own. It's a plan-B move and it's going to be a rough road going forward. For one thing, the combined company between Meredith and Time Inc. would have kicked back almost $2 billion in a one-time dividend to Time Warner. Now that's not going to happen and shareholders are going to have to hope that the Time Inc. spinoff will perform as well or better than TW's other spinoffs, AOL, and Time Warner Cable. The spinoff transaction is expected to be done by the end of the year.  

http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/lessons-laura-langs-brief-tenure-atop-time-inc-147755

Lessons From Laura Lang's (Brief) Tenure Atop Time Inc.

Revenue declines, layoffs and low morale By Lucia Moses Time Inc. CEO Laura Lang was hired away from Digitas some 15 months ago.
The spinoff of Time Inc. means the end of the brutish and short tenure of CEO Laura Lang, whose 15-month run will likely be picked over in the days ahead.

When Lang was hired away from Digitas for the post a little over a year ago, her selection was aimed at bringing digital credibility to a publishing company with prestige titles (Time, Fortune) but steeped in the low-growth print business.

Channels Driving Holiday Purchases

Channels Driving Holiday Purchases: Not Online or Social Media: A 2013 Holiday Retail Marketing Survey finds that email, TV, and print ads were the strongest drivers of purchases, while online and social media proved least influential.
TV ads – 45%
Print ads (newspaper/magazine) – 42%

Fortune Writes Articles Exclusively for Advertisers

http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/fortune-writes-articles-exclusively-advertisers-147662

Advertisers looking to escape the dreaded advertorial trap and give consumers content they'll actually read has helped create the boom in native advertising or branded content. At the same time, publishers continue to seek ways to make their editorial work harder for them.

Fortune is rolling out a new response to this dilemma in the form of a program called Fortune TOC—Trusted Original Content. Similar to licensed editorial content, TOC involves creating original, Fortune-branded editorial content (articles, video, newsletters) exclusively for marketers to distribute on their own platforms. The publisher has set a price range from $250,000 to $1 million.

Everyone Knows Print Is Dead: NSFWCORP Launches Print Edition

http://pandodaily.com/2013/03/05/print-is-dead/

Tina Brown, the editor of Newsweek/DailyBeast says print is dead, and as proof she points to the closure of a magazine that she drove into the ground using a succession of bullshit linkbait-y barely-Business Insider-worthy covers which succeeded only in turning a troubled print brand into a doomed one.

Editors of dozens of local newspapers say print is dead because they are unable to find an audience hungry for their daily bowl of rehashed AP Newswire copy, unfunny comic strips, dumb-as-a-rock “humor” columnists, and some nonsense about an escaped dog.
Media experts say print is dead because, well, that’s the kind of forward thinking insight you have to offer to succeed in media punditry. Writing off an analog format is far more likely to get you a book deal, and far less likely to come back and bite you in the ass than “betting against the future” might.
The consensus that print is dead is clear. And the continuing print success of the Economist (where the same number of subscribers choose a print-only subscription as a digital-only one) is annoying and confusing. As is the continuing print success of the New Yorker and The Week.
They’re easily dismissed though: Those magazines are special. Or they’re institutions that have been around forever (apart from The Week). Or they’re for stuffy old people (apart from The Week).  Or, I dunno, the people who buy them are elves, or goblins — or some kind of creatures that eat paper. Perhaps they’re the same elves or goblins or creatures who buy a combined 6,005,090 print copies every day of the top-ten newspapers in the US.

Publishers Increasing Digital Subscription Prices

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/195159/publishers-raising-digital-sub-prices-paywalls-pa.html#axzz2MtFjGcGF

Publishers who use Press+, the metered access platform created by Journalism Online and now owned by RR Donnelley, are raising subscription prices and lowering the number of articles visitors can view for free before having to pay.

Far from seeing online readership drop after implementing paywalls (as once feared), publishers feel confident enough to push the model further for additional revenues.
Among the more than 400 publishers using the Press+ platform, the average price for a monthly subscription has increased from $6.66 in July 2011 to $9.26 today, for 39% growth in less than two years; 5% of that increase came in the last six months, a survey of Press+ customers conducted by the company.

Publishers' Next Issue Expands Offers

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/195167/next-issue-takes-magazine-apps-to-windows-8.html#axzz2MtFjGcGF

Next Issue, the digital magazine project of five major U.S. publishers, is taking its all-in-one app to Windows 8 devices. The newsstand app offers some 80 titles, including Fast Company, Men’s Fitness, New York Magazine, Food & Wine and ESPN The Magazine.

As with the versions for the iPad and Android tablets, unlimited access to monthly and bi-weekly magazines in the Next Issue app for Windows 8 costs $9.99 a month. A “premium” plan for access to all titles is $14.99.

J.C. Penney's Lay Offs Continue

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100532140

Department store J.C. Penney laid off about 2,200 employees in its stores and district offices on Wednesday, according to a report from The Dallas Morning News. 
These cuts follow another 19,000 employees that have been laid off in the past year since the company began its transformation with Chief Executive Ron Johnson at the helm.

TravelAge West Launches Explorer

http://www.btobonline.com/article/20130307/MEDIABUSINESS0902/303079992/travelage-west-to-debut-adventure-travel-publication

Travel industry magazine TravelAge West is set to launch Explorer, a publication for travel agents that will focus on adventure, soft adventure and experiential travel as well as eco-tourism.
The semiannual publication will provide readers with on-site reviews, packages, sales tools and related products for the experiential travel market. The first issue will be published April 29.

Washington Post Turns to Paid Content Option

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/195055/wapo-joins-paid-content-parade.html#axzz2MhGD86sw

Desperate to find new sources of advertising revenues, major publishers are turning to paid content and native advertising, in essence, allowing advertising clients to present marketing messages in formats resembling editorial content.

The latest publisher to join the trend is The Washington Post, which unveiled a new paid-content feature, “Brand Connect,” which includes placement on the “front page” of the newspaper’s Web site.
According to WaPo, marketing messages delivered via “Brand Connect” benefit from their adjacency to the Web site’s real editorial content.

Online Display Ads Down, Total Media Buys Expand

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/195087/real-data-shows-real-slowdown-in-online-display-m.html#axzz2MhGD86sw

In what is likely the most accurate accounting ever of the U.S. media-buying marketplace, a new, more realistic and somewhat surprising picture of ad spending is beginning to emerge. The data -- the first ever to be released publicly from a system that taps directly into the data processing systems of Madison Avenue’s major agency holding companies -- is shedding light on real market behavior, including a dramatic slowdown in the expansion of online’s premium display advertising marketplace, and a corresponding upsurge in so-called “secondary” display media-buying channels such as ad networks and exchanges.

WSJ Introduces WSJ.Money Magazine

http://www.btobonline.com/article/20130307/MEDIABUSINESS0902/303079993/wall-street-journal-to-introduce-wsj-money

The Wall Street Journal announced it will introduce WSJ.Money, its new personal wealth management magazine, on March 9. The quarterly magazine will appear in the U.S. edition of WSJ Weekend and cover personal finance and wealth management for the long term.

M&A Professionals Expect More Deals

M&A Professionals Expect To Perform More Deals In 2013, According To KPMG Survey: According to a survey conducted by KPMG LLP, the U.S. audit, tax and advisory firm, merger and acquisitions (M&A), private equity and tax professionals from the technology, financial services and healthcare sectors, among others, expect an increase in their companies' or clients' deal activity in 2013 compared to 2012. Of the more than 400 survey respondents, 60 percent said that they would do more deals this year than last year.

Catalyst Paper Reports 2012 & Q4 Results

http://www.catalystpaper.com/

Catalyst Paper results in the fourth quarter were negatively impacted by lower sales volumes, higher maintenance spending and a stronger Canadian dollar.

Catalyst posted a net loss of $35.2 million for the quarter, in contrast to net earnings of $655.7 million in the third quarter, when the one-time gains realized on emergence from creditor protection were booked. Before specific items, net losses were $15.7 million and $7.5 million in Q4 and Q3 respectively. Adjusted EBITDA was $7.2 million in Q4, with no impact from restructuring costs, and $13.8 million in Q3 ($14.0 million before restructuring costs).

Net earnings of $583.2 million for 2012 were heavily impacted by one-time non-cash restructuring credits and fair value accounting adjustments. This compared with a $974.0 million net loss in 2011 which was driven largely by asset impairment charges.

Catalyst entered creditor protection on January 31, 2012, and exited on September 13, having achieved a US$390.4 million or 60 per cent reduction in its debt, savings in annual interest expense of US$33.9 million, and a range of other cost reductions. The restructuring included the permanent closure of its Snowflake mill at the end of the third quarter. Results from this discontinued operation are excluded from those being reported, with comparative periods having been restated accordingly.

ME Senator Pushes Port Hawkesbury Trade Issue

In a letter last Friday, U.S. Senator Angus S. King, Jr. (I-Maine) pressed U.S. Trade Ambassador Ron Kirk for answers about the Canadian government's distribution of $124.5 million in what appear to be illegal trade subsidies to the Port Hawkesbury Paper Mill in Nova Scotia that are responsible in part for the elimination of 45 jobs at the NewPage Paper Mill in Rumford, Maine.

The trade subsidies, which Senator King believes are in violation of established World Trade Organization rules, enabled the Port Hawkesbury Paper Mill to flood the North American market with tons of highly subsidized supercalendered paper. On Wednesday, February 27th, the NewPage Paper
Mill announced the lay-off of 45 employees, citing a drop in demand for #5 Coated Paper, a product often substituted for supercalendered paper.

International Survey: Predictions for the Future of Print

International Survey of Industry Consultants Reveals Predictions for the Future of Print: duomedia, a leading agency specializing in public relations and marketing communications for the graphic arts, industrial, and technology markets, conducted a survey in the fourth quarter of 2012 to gain insight from key consultants in the graphic arts industry. The results of this international survey make it absolutely clear that print must adapt in order to continue to play a crucial role in the communications mix. Print professionals and influencers from 10 countries shared their expert opinions on how print will evolve in the digital age, in this study conducted by pan-European communications agency, duomedia.

Details on Quad/Graphics 2012 & Q4 Results

Quad/Graphics Posts Q4 Profit: SUSSEX, Wis. -- Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year Highlights:
Generated $1.1 billion in net sales during the fourth quarter and $4.1 billion in net sales for full-year 2012.
Achieved $174 million in fourth-quarter Adjusted EBITDA and $566 million in full-year Adjusted EBITDA.
Reported fourth quarter Adjusted EBITDA margin of 15.3% and full-year Adjusted EBITDA margin of 13.8%.
Generated $375 million in full-year Recurring Free Cash Flow, surpassing upwardly revised guidance of $340 million, partially benefitted by $15 million in lower capital expenditures that moved from 2012 into 2013.
Repaid $120 million in debt in 2012, maintaining the Company's yearend leverage of 2.39x within the targeted range of 2.0x to 2.5x.
Increased 2013 quarterly cash dividend by 20% to $0.30 per share.
On January 16, 2013, completed its acquisition of Vertis Holdings, Inc. ("Vertis") and began implementing integration plans to achieve efficiencies and cost-savings.

Shipping Recovery Seen by 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-05/shipping-recovery-seen-by-2015-by-bank-of-america-on-supply-ease.html

Hire costs for the global fleet of dry-bulk vessels will show a “meaningful increase” by 2015 as demand for seaborne commodities expands amid slowing fleet growth, Bank of America Merrill Lynch said.

“We see a major shift in the sector next year, as demand growth once again outpaces fleet capacity additions and the oversupply in the market starts to shrink. Yet, due to the magnitude of excess supply over demand, we believe a sustained recovery in bulk freight prices will take longer to materialize,” the Charlotte, North Carolina-based investment bank said in a note e-mailed today.