Tag Archives: TheStreet.com
TheStreet.com and Journal Register Co. strike content sharing agreement
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Financial news site TheStreet.com and media company Journal Register Co. have entered into an agreement where the two will share content.
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
TheStreet.com will provide national business, financial markets and personal finance content to the Journal Register’s newspapers and websites, while the Journal Register’s media properties will provide local business coverage to TheStreet.com and its websites.
The Journal Register’s papers include the New Haven (Conn.) Register, The Oakland (Mich.) Press, Delaware County Daily (Pa.) and Sunday Times, The Macomb (Mich.) Daily, the Lorain (Ohio) Daily Journal, and the Trentonian (N.J.).
The Journal Register emerged from bankruptcy court protection in 2009.
“This deal greatly expands our company’s overall offerings and, at the same time, enables each of our respective properties the ability to use their news teams more effectively with a particular focus on local news,” said Journal Register CEO John Paton in a statement. “We are extremely excited to be working with TheStreet in what promises to be a very well received, mutually beneficial venture.”
To see how one of the Journal Register paper’s plans to add TheStreet.com content to its site, check out the business news page of the New Haven Register.
TheStreet.com strikes content deal with Ohio paper
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TheStreet.com has agreed to provide business and financial news to the Lorain Morning Journal, a newspaper in Ohio.
A brief on the newspaper’s website states, “This partnership allows The Morning Journal and MorningJournal.com to deliver more robust and extensive content to our audience.
“From detailed analysis of stocks, bank and mortgage rates to extensive coverage of personal finance and the market forces impacting small businesses, The Morning Journal and MorningJournal.com can now deliver more business focused news and information.
“We will continue to expand this partnership to provide more detailed business content in our print edition of The Morning Journal in the coming weeks – including features like Jim Cramer articles and investment advice, automotive news and money-saving green energy news.”
Read more here.
Bad coverage of McDonald's February sales
by Chris Roush
TheStreet.com media critic Marek Fuchs says that beside the Wall Street Journal, none of the business media accurately covered the February same store sales data from McDonald’s.
Bad coverage of McDonald’s February sales
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TheStreet.com media critic Marek Fuchs says that beside the Wall Street Journal, none of the business media accurately covered the February same store sales data from McDonald’s.
TheStreet.com signs contributor to royalty deal
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TheStreet.com signed signed contributor and hedge fund manager Doug Kass to a new long-term, royalty-based agreement.
A story on its site states, “Kass, a longtime contributor to TheStreet’s network of sites, will shift to a compensation structure in which he will earn royalties based on the revenue derived from the company’s RealMoney Silver subscription service, from a salary-based pay structure.
“The new contract is effective Tuesday.
“‘We are excited to have Doug onboard as a marquee contributor,” said TheStreet’s CEO Daryl Otte, in a statement. ‘He is extremely well-respected throughout the industry and has an avid following, built on his mix of prescient investment calls and his highly entertaining market commentary, both here at TheStreet and through the prominent role he plays in the markets and other media.’”
Read more here. Talking Biz News reported earlier this year that the site struck a similar royalty payment deal with co-founder Jim Cramer.
Cramer steps down as chair of TheStreet.com
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Jim Cramer, a co-founder of TheStreet.com and host of “Mad Money” on CNBC, has stepped down as chairman of the board of the financial news site’s parent company.
Cramer will remain on the board, but he’s being replaced as chair by Christopher “Woody” Marshall.
Marshall is general partner at Technology Crossover Ventures, a private equity and venture capital firm with $7.7 billion under management focused on information technology companies. Prior to joining TCV in 2008, he spent 12 years at Trident Capital, a leading venture capital and private equity firm focused on the software, business services and Internet markets.
In a statement, Cramer said, “I am thrilled to be handing this post to Woody, who knows our business well, and I am confident will make an outstanding chairperson.”
Palo Alto, Calif.-based Technology Crossover Ventures invested in TheStreet.com in 2007. According to the company’s most-recent proxy statement, Marshall has been a director of TheStreet.com since August 2009.
Technology Crossover Ventures owns more than 5 million shares, or 15.9 percent, of TheStreet.com, making it the company’s largest investor. Cramer is the second-largest investor, with 4 million shares, or 12.8 percent.
Behind TheStreet.com’s new logo
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John Pavlus writes on the Fast Company design blog about financial news site TheStreet.com‘s redesigned logo.
Pavlus writes, “When you want a new logo that’s going to be an indisputable slam-dunk — as opposed to… well, you know — you go to Pentagram. Specifically, Pentagram partner and graphic-design titan Paula Scher. In a world where it’s de rigueur to sneer at solid branding design, Scher’s designs are the next best thing to bulletproof. So it’s only logical that the online financial journalism veterans at TheStreet approached Scher to help them update their long-stagnant logo.
“Scher’s new brand identity drops the no-longer-necessary ‘.com’ (this is 2011 — who isn’t a dot-com?) and the clichéd, Wall Street Journal-wannabe serif typeface. In their place: a muscular, no-nonsense font (a hand-drawn modification of Akzidenz Grotesk, if you’re wondering) with a triple-dash graphic mark, inspired by (what did you expect?) street markings, that boils the brand down to its Platonic essence.
“‘I just looked at a real street: those three dotted lines are the fast lane,’ Scher tells Co.Design. ‘It’s a perfect analogy to who they are.’”
Read more here.
Cramer forgoes salary, bonus for royalty payments
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TheStreet.com founder Jim Cramer has a new, three-year employee contract that began earlier this month where he won’t be paid a salary or a bonus from the financial news site and will instead be paid a royalty fee based on the revenue produced from one of its subscription products.
In addition, the host of CNBC’s “Mad Money” signaled that the deal would be his last long-term employment agreement with the site.
The royalty will be based on the revenue derived from TheStreet.com’s Action Alerts PLUS subscription service that he authors. Cramer also will receive a grant of restricted stock units, which will vest over three years.
Cramer’s salary in 2010 was $1.87 million, although he delayed his pay raise until later in the year. The previous year, his pay was $1.56 million.
“Given the length of this new contract and my current plans for the way I plan to spend my time beyond that, I expect that this will be the last long-term agreement between me and the company,” said Cramer in a statement filed with the SEC back in December. (I can’t find where any media covered the announcement.) “Although I’d expect to continue participating in the company’s success beyond that in some manner, I’ve made this decision now as I want to be mindful to set the stage for a transition far enough out into the future that ensures the business will be well prepared to continue, from a position of strength, beyond my involvement.”
Action Alerts PLUS is where Cramer tells subscribers what trades he’s going to make – buy or sell – with the funds of his charitable trust, before he makes the trade. The portfolio in his charitable trust — 100 percent of the profits will go to charity — has consistently beaten the S&P 500 since its inception nine years ago.
The SEC filing can be found here.
Cramer owns more than 4 million shares of the company, or about 12.5 percent. At Tuesday’s closing price of $2.96, those shares are worth more than $12 million.
Understanding when news is driven by underwriting
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TheStreet.com media critic Marek Fuchs doesn’t understand why the media is falling all over themselves to report the analyst research coming out about General Motors when it is primarily from firms that underwrote its initial public offering.
Disclosures in business journalism
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Here are some disclosures about potential conflicts of interest that have appeared in or after business news stories in recent weeks:
1. Story on Dow Jones Newswires about MySpace: MySpace is owned by News Corp., which also owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of this newswires and the Wall Street Journal.
2. Biotech writer Adam Feuerstein: Adam Feuerstein writes regularly for TheStreet.com. In keeping with TSC’s editorial policy, he doesn’t own or short individual stocks, although he owns stock in TheStreet.com. He also doesn’t invest in hedge funds or other private investment partnerships.
3. SmartMoney’s Jim Stewart: Based on GM’s sales from the past four quarters, a $40 billion market value gives a price-to-sales ratio of 0.3, compared with 0.4 for Ford (whose shares I own and have previously recommended), 0.5 for Toyota and 0.6 for Honda.
4. Fortune’s Carol Loomis: Disclosure: Carol Loomis is a long-time friend of Warren Buffett’s and a Berkshire Hathaway shareholder.
5. London market’s roundup on Marketwatch.com: News Corp., which owns around 39% of BSkyB, is the parent company of MarketWatch, the publisher of this report.
6. Thom Calandra of Stockhouse.com: I know about Endeavour Silver’s growth because I have been to its primary silver mine in Guanajuato and I own the shares (the only company in this article whose shares I own).
I looked for the last one specifically because Calandra, while working for Marketwatch.com earlier this decade, failed to disclose that he held positions in stocks that he was writing about in a positive fashion and was selling them shortly after publication. He settled with the SEC in January 2005, agreeing to pay more than $540,000 in penalties.
