- HuffPost is laying off 47 employees in the United States and closing its unit in Canada, employees said on Tuesday.
- BuzzFeed completed its acquisition of HuffPost in February.
- The restructuring is likely to extend to other HuffPost offices around the world.
- Visit the Business section of the Insider for more stories.
Layoffs are coming to HuffPost, just weeks after the publisher was acquired by its digital rival BuzzFeed.
BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti said at a meeting with employees on Tuesday that 47 people would be fired in the United States, according to a BuzzFeed spokesman. The company is also closing HuffPost Canada and moving away from local HuffPost Australia coverage.
Hillary Frey, executive editor at HuffPost, and Louise Roug, international executive editor, decided to leave the company, the spokesman said.
The company initiated consultations in Australia and the United Kingdom to propose cuts there as well, the spokesman added.
HuffPost’s losses last year exceeded $ 20 million and would be similar this year without action, Peretti said at the meeting, according to a person present at the meeting. He added that the goal is for HuffPost to break even this year.
“When BuzzFeed was losing a lot of money, we adjusted our strategy and size,” said Peretti at the meeting, according to the person present. “We focused on diversifying our sources of revenue, reducing our costs and achieving profitability. It was a difficult and painful job, but now we have a stronger business than ever.”
A memo sent to HuffPost union officials in the United States said that 33 members of the HuffPost union would be affected. The HuffPost union had about 130 members, while the company had about 250 employees in total in November.
A company spokesman said HuffPost is in the final stages of its search for a new editor-in-chief and will make an announcement in the coming weeks.
At the end of the process, HuffPost’s newsroom will remain larger than BuzzFeed News, the spokesman said.
“The restructuring we announced today is not a short-term cost-cutting exercise. We are moving to a model that will allow HuffPost to balance this year and eventually be profitable, and that requires cost management through restructuring, along with revenue acceleration, which will be managed by the BuzzFeed business organization, “said the BuzzFeed spokesman.
BuzzFeed announced its intention to acquire Verizon Media’s HuffPost last year. In addition to the all-share deal, Verizon made an undisclosed cash investment in BuzzFeed and became a minority shareholder in the company. The transaction closed in February.
The BuzzFeed-HuffPost tie has sparked speculation that further consolidation of digital media will take place soon. The activity of mergers and acquisitions in space has already started to heat up. In January, the Nine Media Group, backed by Discovery – behind sites like Thrillist, NowThis and The Dodo – formed a special-purpose acquisition company to raise money to acquire other digital media companies.
The author of this story previously worked on BuzzFeed News.