June 1st, 2009
Some Business.com: R.H. Donnelley files for bankruptcy?
In July 2007, R.H. Donnelley paid $345 million for the domain Business.com. That dough could have come in handy today as R.H. Donnelley’s market capitalization is a hair above $3 million. R.H. Donnelley on Monday filed for Chapter 11 restructuring.
In a statement, R.H. Donnelley said that had reached an agreement in principle with creditors to cut its debt by $6.4 billion and cut $500 million in annual interest expense. R.H. Donnelley said it will be “business as usual” during its restructuring. The company said it anticipated more than $300 million in cash on hand to fund its operations.
David C. Swanson, chairman and CEO of R.H. Donnelley, understated:
Our growth-through-acquisition strategy never anticipated the cataclysmic collapse of the U.S. economy and the local advertising market.
Surely, R.H. Donnelley was thinking big when it acquired Business.com. But what Swanson didn’t see it coming, Jake Winebaum did. He left R.H. Donnelley a little more than a year ago after selling Business.com the prior summer.
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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