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acquisitions
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neil ashe
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acquisitions
mergers
The CBS-CNET merger negotiation timeline
How'd the CBS-CNET merger go down? Without much involvement from CBS Interactive head Quincy Smith, it turns out. Most of the negotiations with CNET CEO Neil Ashe went through Fredric Reynolds, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of CBS. Occaisionally, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves stepped in to move things along. That and more surprises in our timeline of the deal, below. More »
jackpot
CNET CEO Neil Ashe made $1.6 milllion selling to CBS yesterday, and you didn't
Under the wing of CBS, CNET CEO Neil Ashe will continue to earn his $700,000 salary. He'll also get a 100 percent bonus and, in the next 10 days, a long-term stock award of "not less than $1,625,000 per year," according to a 8-K CNET filed with the SEC yesterday. CNET CFO Zander Lurie will get such a stock award worth "not less than $1,000,000 per year."
cnet
Quincy Smith's one big idea
CNET has been eyed by Quincy Smith, CBS's hyperacquisitive online chief, long before he sealed a $1.8 billion deal to buy the company. As a banker at Allen & Co., CNET was his client. "At one point, he wrote this major presentation about how valuable content was," a tipster tells us. "The single example in it was CNET. It was basically his only idea." An unfair dig? Perhaps. There is little like CNET on the market — a pure play on professional online content worth $1.8 billion? It can't be found. But the lack of a direct competitor may have also been CNET's undoing — the mixed blessing that brought it under attack by activist investors and led it to CBS's waiting arms. More »
10:40 AM on Thu May 15 2008
By Owen Thomas
1,470 views,
5 comments
Latest by n/a: Halsey *built* a horse farm, while Shelby inherited one. (Shelby's family is a longtime horse family from Kentucky). But Halsey bought Carter's Grove Plantation in Virginia last year, a fabulous historical landmark. He is building a horse-breeding farm and has more »
online advertising
The trouble with CNET
Myopic Wall Street often uses a microscope when it should use a telescope. The rot at Web publisher CNET goes far beyond the particulars of one quarter. Forget the question of by how many cents per share it missed earnings expectations, and ask yourself this: Why isn't CNET gushing cash? Its established brands in tech news and reviews should be printing money. No wonder hedge fund Jana Partners is trying to unseat its board. I'm not sure Jana has any plan, other than throwing the boardroom rascals out. So what's the problem, and what to do? More »
5:00 PM on Thu Apr 24 2008
By Owen Thomas
1,736 views,
14 comments
Latest by masterofmonkeys: Before the bust, Cnet threw some great parties for employees. The place never regained its balance, though, despite the rebound, either morale wise, or business wise. more »
comments
This made me LOL for real: In this post about the memo CNET CEO Neil Ashe sent out regarding CNETs recent layoffs, commenter random_play penned a beauty:
Commenter of the week: random_play
This made me LOL for real: In this post about the memo CNET CEO Neil Ashe sent out regarding CNETs recent layoffs, commenter random_play penned a beauty: The memo is as transparent as it is salient. Simply, Neil Ashe states that CNET needs to embrace change by exploiting their first-mover advantage to drive efficiencies by conceptualizing and architecting brand-centric, seamless, end-to-end, best-of-breed solutions for forward-leaning virtual communities.But wait, we're just getting started: More »
layoffs
Maybe a CNET pink slip will raise that infant
"That's life," commenter danmiller3 wrote after we told you about how CNET laid off an employee recovering from cancer. Turns out he was more right than he knew. A new CNET tipster tells that one of his laid-off colleagues lost his job just two months after his wife gave birth. "Fuck Neil Ashe," our source says. He says CNET employees are "all half hoping" private equity firm Jana Partners — which already has a 14.9 percent stake in the company — "takes over and fixes the platform and other underlying legacy issues from when CNET was a cable syndicator instead of trying to create tons of new fledgling brands."
strategery
If I worked at CNET, this layoff memo would make me want to quit
CNET CEO Neil Ashe sent this all-hands memo to explain to his charges the changes that CNET is making to be successful. The memo looks like it came straight out of a Dilbert strip. Ashe says CNET must "embrace change" and "drive greater efficiencies in the business." In addition, a management task force has evaluated CNET's "organization and resource alignment." How about writing a memo in actual English? That seems easier — and a better way to spend everyone's time. At least Jerry Yang's memos had that funny e.e. cummings-esque no-capital-letters charm going for them. Ashe's anodyne euphemisms? They make me glad I don't work at CNET — or any other huge conglomerate for that matter.
cnet
CNET looking to shed dead weight
You may recall CNET Networks sold Webshots to American Greetings yesterday at the fire-sale price of $45 million. Well, it's not stopping there. In an effort to build the "media company of the future," CEO Neil Ashe said, "it is also important to sell some of our properties and we won't shy from it." Important in the we-lost-$16-million-in-the-third-quarter kind of way. Remember when CNET had a monopoly on tech news and reviews online? Now it's holding a slew of Baltic and Continental Avenues, like Search.com and MySimon. Time to trade those in for some hotels on your more rentable domains, Neil.
silicon valley tool
Buy CNET or the terrorists will have won
Reformed stock promoter Henry Blodget has a suggestion for CNET: Take it private, with the help of former CEO Shelby Bonnie. An excellent idea. From all we hear, morale couldn't be lower at the tech-news portal. And current CEO Neil Ashe isn't helping matters. His idea of a pep speech? "We should be more like Al Qaeda," he told an assembly of employees. You mean, hated by everyone on the planet? Judging from how his underlings feel, Ashe is getting a head start on that project inside his own offices. Cheer up, Neil! You just won the latest prize for being a Silicon Valley Tool.
cnet
