Greg Hywood’s five year Fairfax anniversary in numbers
Hywood: 11.2 million happy returns
A significant anniversary has arrived.
Greg Hywood has been at the helm of Fairfax Media for exactly five years this month.
Dr Mumbo has a few numbers to share, without further comment.
The value of Fairfax Media shares on the ASX:
- When Hywood took the helm in February 2011: $1.38
- Now: 79.5c
The current value of $1,000 invested in Fairfax shares on the day Hywood joined:
- $576
FXJ five year share price (blue) against the ASX 200 (red) | Source: Google Finance
- The company’s annual turnover in 2011: $2.5bn
- The company’s annual turnover last year: $1.9bn.
Fairfax’s net profit after tax over the last five years:
- 2011 – Loss of $389,667
- 2012 – Loss of $2,784,785
- 2013 – Loss of $312,852
- 2014 – Profit of $225,168
- 2015 – Profit of $87,205
Number of print copies circulated of the Sydney Morning Herald:
- At the start of 2011 – 209,644
- At the start of 2016 – 104,155
Hywood’s total salary and benefits (not including the current financial year) since taking charge:
- $11.22m
Dr Mumbo wishes Greg a thoroughly happy five year anniversary.
Gawd! When you put it like that…….
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Truly an awful investment, but how’s he done against media company peers?
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Hard to compare like with like in all cases, Fergus, but it’s certainly not been a good time to be a media investor. Based on Google Finance:
News Corp (NWS – which includes a lot of global stuff) is down 6% since listing in 2013.
APN News & Media is down 68%.
NEC (Nine) is down 25% since listing in late 2013.
SWM (Seven) is down 82%, although I seem to recall there may have been some shifting ownerships with SGH in 2012 which may muddy that number.
Ten is down 90%.
SXL (Southern Cross) is down 37%.
Prime Media Group is down 44%.
Outdoor has fared much better – APN Outdoor up 125% since listing in 2014. OOH Media up 100% since listing in late 2014.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
There’s a more important measure. What evidence is there that Hywood added value anywhere? My perception is that he has created risk by allowing the product to decline to a critical level of weakness and I say that knowing that costs had to fall. His efforts to show domain as a win is also flawed as its not clear how it’s worth what he spent.
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And now two consecutive years of profit. He has turned the business into a smarter more efficient one it would seem!?
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Tough gig. Based on the number represented in this feed and story, he’s done better than some? Press is dead. And has been dying for years. Print was the majority of Fairfax’s business in 2011 and has been in decline well before that and ever since and will continue.
How has he done against his counterpart over at News locally – not globally? I think it would be something like who has the lost the most vs who has lost and who has won. And News were much quicker to join the digital gravy train.
Maybe guilty of not understanding the gravity of the situation at the time but anyone running a predominately print business back then was always going to struggle. You could say the OOH sector has done well but when you have Digital OOH effectively charging the same cost for 75% less impact, they haven’t really done well at all.
When your annual salary is 7.5% of the company’s profit, something ain’t right
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AK: smarter, as in the brilliant quality journalism represented by Hywoods favourite columnist Paul Sheehan? More efficient as in the multilayered noodle nation organisation recently foisted on staff via yet another batch of PowerPoint wizards at BCG?
Fact is there has been just a series of cost reductions and no sign whatever of a strategy that is actually sustained and sustainable.
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Man needs to downsize himself
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