Stocks Slip as Earnings Season Looms Over Markets: Live Updates

Condé Nast, the most glittering of all magazine publishers, is the latest media casualty of the coronavirus pandemic.

Roger J. Lynch, the chief executive of the company behind Vogue, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, sent a memo on Monday to 6,000 employees around the world to inform them of an austerity plan that includes pay cuts, furloughs and possible layoffs.

“It’s very likely our advertising clients, consumers, and therefore our company, will be operating under significant financial pressure for some time,” Mr. Lynch said in the note. “As a result, we’ll need to go beyond the initial cost-savings measures we put in place to protect our business for the long term.”

The salaries of those earning $100,000 or more — just under half the company — will be reduced 10 to 20 percent for five months, starting in May, the memo said. The salaries of executives in the senior management team, including Anna Wintour, the artistic director and Condé Nast’s best-known figurehead, will be cut 20 percent. In addition, Mr. Lynch said he would forgo half his salary.

The company plans to establish three- or four-day workweeks for some employees in markets such as Britain and the European Union, “in particular where government programs and stimulus packages can help supplement employees’ earnings,” Mr. Lynch wrote in the memo.

Condé Nast is not directly asking for government money but is instead exploring the use of relief programs and stimulus packages in certain regions for furloughed or laid off employees.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/business/stocks-today-coronavirus.html