Ziff Davis Plans Financial Restructuring

Officials from Ziff Davis Media, owner of consumer press outlets 1up.com and Electronic Gaming Monthly, have announced that the company is currently "exploring various options to restructure its debt” while at the same time choosing not to make a scheduled interest payment. Jason Young, CEO of Ziff Davis Media, said in a statement: "We are actively pursuing a considered and reasonable course of action to improve our capital structure as quickly as possible. Amidst a challenging print environment, our digital and event operations are doing well with our interactive segment growing at a faster rate than the industry." "We are committed to making improvements in our capital structure, aligning it to the realities of our business operations, and unlocking the growth potential that we believe can be achieved in our remaining businesses," he added. The company expects to conduct business as usual while it explores its restructuring options. At the same time the company has also filed a Form 12b-25 delaying its quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30th, 2007 until August 20th at the latest. Representatives claim that additional time is needed in order to analyze and review accounting related to the recent sale of the business’ Enterprise Group. Although the company has recently taken to selling off a number of its individual business groups, it was recently confirmed that the game media division will not be one of these. The game media group continues to be run at a loss though, with revenues down 17 percent to $5.4 million at the end of the first quarter.