Media giant Time Inc. has announced it will lay off as many as 300 workers in an attempt to cut costs and restructure the company — a move that CEO Richard Battista has described as “difficult but necessary.”
The decision comes amidst falling levels of circulation of some of the company’s key magazines such as Time, Fortune and Sports Illustrated.
As part of the savings, the company will now focus on investing in growing digital markets such as video and paid subscriptions.
“We are taking a holistic approach to cost-structure re-engineering for the whole company,” Battista told CNN. “In commencing that work, we are looking for ways to be more efficient as a company and ways to find more cost savings.”
“As I’ve mentioned many times, Time Inc. is a company in rapid transformation in an industry undergoing dynamic change,” Battista wrote in a memo to employees, adding that the company would always “try to minimize any employee headcount reductions.”
The company’s stock price has also fallen by approximately 30 percent in recent months amid uncertainty over whether the company would be sold. However, Time Inc. announced in April that it had decided not to sell itself after it failed to find a buyer who would meet its $1.8 billion asking price.
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