How Failing Magazines Fueled A 3,800% Return For Shareholders In This British Publisher - NewsBreak

Future Media's CEO has used cost cutting and ecommerce sales to drive the company's stock up, in what now looks like a playbook for the entire magazine industry. The London offices of Future Plc. are at the dead end of a decidedly unfashionable west London cul-de-sac, flanked by a couple of cheap hostels. Inside the squat white building are rows and rows of cheap particle-board desks, all of them empty. Eighteen months after the start of the pandemic, many of the company's 2,500 staff are still working remotely to publish 80 hobbyist magazines ranging from Guitar Player and PC Gamer to Radio World and Golf Monthly. But the board room, where CEO Zillah Byng-Thorne is holding court, is lined with garish black and red leather $200 gaming chairs. "We got them free from one of our events, and I thought we could have them in our office," shrugs Byng-Thorne.