CME plans to lay off 1,000 employees by yearend

Central European Media Enterprises (CME), the mother company of the Pro TV stations in Romania, plans to make 1,000 employees redundant by the end of the year. The media group also said it is in the process of reviewing its “non-core businesses,” after posting poor Q3 results, according to digitaltveurope.net

“By the end of this year, we are targeting to have approximately 1,000 fewer employees than we had at the start of 2013,” said co-CEO Michael Del Nin, quoted by the publication.

According to Del Nin, this would result in roughly USD 30 million (EUR 22 million) in annual savings, but also in a larger-than-anticipated restructuring charge of USD 20 million this year, as well as severance costs of approximately USD 7 million in total for the third and fourth quarters, writes digitaltveurope.net

“Going forward, we plan to focus our energies on building our core TV broadcasting assets in each country. As such, we are in the process of reviewing alternatives for some of our non-core businesses, such as theatrical and home video distribution, including potential divestitures of some or all of these assets,” said Del Nin, quoted by the publication.

The announcement came on low financial indicators announced by CME for the first nine months of the year.  Thus, CME reported decreasing net revenues of USD 453.1 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2013, from USD 518.7 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2012. Net loss for the nine months ended September 30, 2013 hiked to USD 173.3 million from USD 43.3 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2012.

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CME announced at that time that it might be forced to require an additional capital infusion. In case discussions do not work out, the company said it might be unable to pay its debts or continue development. Following this announcement, CME shares plummeted by 50 percent.

In Romania, CME runs the stations PRO TV, PRO TV International, Acasa, Acasa Gold, PRO Cinema, Sport.ro, MTV Romania, PRO TV Chisinau and Acasa Moldova.

 Otilia Haraga