Time Inc. said ready to swing jobs ax - again

TIME

Inc. is readying another round of layoffs, sources said, with about 200 people expected to get the ax — half of whom will come from the editorial ranks.

The layoffs are expected to hit by mid-November.

The move comes as Time’s business and its stock continue to languish despite Chief Executive Rich

Battista’s pledge to Wall Street to shave $400 million in costs as part of the big restructuring plan.

A Time Inc. spokeswoman was not commenting on any of the developments.

But on a day when the Dow Jones industrial average topped 23,000 for the first time, Time Inc. shares fell 3.4 percent, to $12.25.

At least one big part of the re- structuring plan seems to be proceeding full steam ahead as the company gets ready to sell its Time UK division, which publishes magazines including Wallpaper, Horse & Hound, World Soccer — as well as the British versions of Marie Claire and In Style, among others.

The private equity firm Epiris is reportedly closing in on a deal to buy the London-based unit for just under $200 million.

Another plank in the restructuring platform, however, looks shaky, sources said. The sale of the Customer Service Center in Tampa for a hoped-for $300 million is not going well, sources said.

While it has attracted some interest from foreign outsourcing firms, there is considerably less interest from US firms in buying the aging mail-sorting equipment and taking over the 600 to 700 employees who currently work there.

Time Inc. just four months ago, said it was going to ax 300 jobs, representing 4 percent of its worldwide workforce.

Glamour? Not Lena

Lena Dunham has shot down rumors that she was in the running to become the next editor-in-chief of Glamour. But sources say there still could be a Condé Nast link with Dunham’s “Lenny” newsletter in the near future.

Glamour Editor-in-Chief Cindi Leive is stepping down at year-end, and a hunt is on to find her replacement.

But regarding the rumor that it will be Dunham, Lena’s spokesman told Media Ink: “There is absolutely zero truth to it.”

Regarding “Lenny” moving to Condé Nast, Dunham’s spokesman declined to comment.

A Condé insider confirmed that there are talks ongoing — but nothing has been finalized.

Condé Nast also officially declined to comment.

“Lenny” — the feminist political, style and literary newsletter launched by Dunham and Jenni Konner, the executive producer of their HBO comedy, “Girls” — launched in October 2015 and is delivered primarily via e-mail twice a week.

It had an arrangement with Hearst Magazines to sell ads and share in the revenue, and for some of the content to run in Hearstowned titles such as Elle and Marie Claire.

But the contract quietly expired at the end of 2016, according to a Hearst insider.

The bust-up of the deal with Hearst was not done with any animosity, it just did not reach a critical mass, said one source.

$1 and a dream

Jim Cramer’s financial Web site, TheStreet, may finally have turned the corner.

Cramer, the host of CNBC’s “Mad Money,” is the site’s founder and biggest shareholder. TheStreet was being threatened since mid-June with delisting by Nasdaq because its share price had dipped below $1 for more than 30 straight days.

As a result, it was removed from the Nasdaq Global Market to the less heavily traded Capital Market. If it didn’ t get its share price above $1 for 10 straight days, it would be moved to the Pink Sheets. But fear not. On Sept. 22, the share price closed above $1 — and it has remained there ever since.

Investment bank B. Riley is predicting it will reach $2.10 a share.

It has not had a profitable full year since 2008, but in June, it posted its first profitable quarter in two years.

Kate moves on

Kate Lanphear has a chance at redemption after her Maxim fiasco two years ago. She’s been hired to be the new creative director at Marie Claire, replacing Nina Garcia, who has already moved over to editor of Elle. No word if Lanphear gets a seat as a judge on Lifetime’s “Project Runway” show. Lanphear had achieved high marks from the fashion world when she was style director of T, the New York Times Style Magazine, and earlier as creative director of Elle and AAustralian Vogue. She was a surprise choice to be the editorin-chief of struggling Maxim in the fall of 2014 and unleased a sweeping redesign in March 2015 as it tried to move away from its bawdy frat boy roots into a more sophisticated upscale magazine. But readers hated it and defected en masse.