Courtship rituals and nasty letters
Oliver Classen on the ups and downs of the Jean Frey turnaround.
Oliver Classen on the light and shadows of the Jean Frey turnaround: That's what you get for it, Filippo Leutenegger must have thought when he opened the thick mail at the end of last week: barely back in the black and the trade unions are already at the door (again)! Less than 48 hours after announcing the surprisingly generous annual profit of 10 million Swiss francs that Jean Frey Verlag (JF) was able to achieve in the crisis year of 2003, Comedia called on its CEO to make the ultimate compensation payments to the internal victims of the turnaround.This appeal is as obvious as it is naive: if Leutenegger had not chosen his salami-slicing tactics for the 40 redundancies at the time - which Comedia rightly criticized - he would not be able to report a double-digit result today. And without successful restructuring, not only would the future of the remaining 250 jobs remain uncertain; a radically slimmed down and gold-covered JF would also definitely look more attractive as a potential bride on the international marriage market.
Springer Verlag remains the most highly traded suitor in industry circles. This is not so much because the Welt publisher has joined forces with
Roger Köppel has already secured the intellectual crown jewel of Jean Frey. In fact, the doubling of annual profits to 130 million euros and a correspondingly bulging war chest are crying out for an increase in silverware. It will therefore be interesting to see whether the "new scope for investment in the core business", which Springer CEO Matthias Döpfner spoke of at the annual press conference in Berlin, will reach as far as Switzerland.
PS: Despite cutting over 1,500 jobs last year alone, Döpfner has not received any threatening letters from the German media union. Instead, some Springer editorial offices recently went on strike as part of the wage negotiations. Leutenegger will be thinking to himself, "Then I'd rather have a proper, but ultimately toothless demand for back pay.
> Oliver Classen, Editor
Springer Verlag remains the most highly traded suitor in industry circles. This is not so much because the Welt publisher has joined forces with
Roger Köppel has already secured the intellectual crown jewel of Jean Frey. In fact, the doubling of annual profits to 130 million euros and a correspondingly bulging war chest are crying out for an increase in silverware. It will therefore be interesting to see whether the "new scope for investment in the core business", which Springer CEO Matthias Döpfner spoke of at the annual press conference in Berlin, will reach as far as Switzerland.
PS: Despite cutting over 1,500 jobs last year alone, Döpfner has not received any threatening letters from the German media union. Instead, some Springer editorial offices recently went on strike as part of the wage negotiations. Leutenegger will be thinking to himself, "Then I'd rather have a proper, but ultimately toothless demand for back pay.
> Oliver Classen, Editor
