American Media Inc. Is Based In Florida But Still Keeps Heading South

Posted by: on October 27

More bad news from American Media, the battered private equity play fronted by David Pecker and which owns the National Enquirer and The Star, writes Keith Kelly of the New York Post:

For the third time, American Media has blown a deadline for restating its earnings, and David Pecker’s tattered tabloid publisher now won’t issue cleaned up financial numbers until early 2007, the company said yesterday.

Almost precisely one year ago I wrote a column outlining the fix the company and Pecker were in. Chief among them was declining cash flow, which continued to defy Pecker’s rosier predictions:

Last November he predicted American Media’s revenues would rise to $600 million [in 2005] and post EBITDA of $200 million. Now he says ‘06 will bring in revenues around $560 million and EBITDA of around $145 million.

Turns out these ‘06 numbers, too, proved too rosy, reports Kelly:

In its August conference call, the company revised its estimates downward to $506.4 million in revenue and $117.3 in cash flow for the 2006 fiscal year.

Now it estimates the revenues will be even lower - $504.9 million - and cash flow of only $110.9 million, a 5.4 percent drop from the latest revision.

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