Time Inc. shares down on Q1 loss, CEO promises 'aggressive' cost-cutting

The CEO of Time Inc. promised aggressive cost-cutting including the sale of some assets after the publisher reported a first-quarter net loss.

The moves come along with some reshuffling of the company's board, all just two weeks after Time Inc. opted not to sell to a variety of bidders.

Months of speculation about a possible acquisition, a process the company itself did not initiate, affected Time's performance in the quarter, CEO Rich Battista said Wednesday on a conference call with analysts.

Time Inc., reported a net loss of $28 million or 29 cents per share in the first quarter, which ended March 31. During the same period last year, Time Inc.'s net loss was $10 million, or 10 cents per year. Analysts were expecting a loss of $14 million and 14 cents per share, according to those polled by S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Revenue of $636 million fell short of the $690 million from the January-March period a year ago, and of analysts' expectations of $641.85 million.

Time (TIME) shares were down 14% to $12.93 Monday.

"Print and other advertising revenues were negatively impacted by the public speculation about the ownership of the company and the disruption from the reorganization of our advertising sales force," Battista said. "We're confident that the sales structure in place, which allows us to provide the best solutions to advertisers across our brands and platforms, is the right approach for advertisers today."

An auditor has been hired to assess costs, he said, and the company has identified some "relatively smaller" non-core assets that could be sold.

Also Wednesday, the company announced that Executive Chairman Joseph Ripp and board director Howard Stringer plan to retire and not seek re-election at the company's June 29 annual shareholders meeting.

The company's board elected John Fahey, Time Inc.'s current lead independent director as non-executive chairman, also effective June 29. Nominated to the board is Dan Rosensweig, the CEO at online learning platform Chegg and a former chief operating officer at Yahoo chief.

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Follow Paste BN reporter Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider.