• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, 10 hours ago

IAC is rebranding itself as it concentrates on its strongest businesses: publishing and its stake in MGM Resorts.

As of August, the firm will be called People Incorporated. But the bad news is this reshuffling could result in layoffs.

“We're transitioning the necessary staff of IAC into the corpus of People,” writes Barry Diller, chairman and chief executive of IAC, in a letter to shareholders. “That will significantly reduce our overhead as we concentrate on our two assets: People publishing and our holdings in MGM Resorts.”

You may recall that IAC’s publishing division rebranded from Dotdash Meredith to People, Inc. last year.

The changing of IAC’s name will eliminate branding confusion, although readers may have trouble distinguishing People Incorporated from People, Inc. But it is part of a growing trend. Last summer, Gannett rebranded itself as USA Today Co.

“Our major continuing operating business is now our publishing operations,” Diller acknowledges in his letter. “We are unlike most publishers in that we began as a native digital publisher and spent a decade developing the expertise to grow into a thriving digital business anchored online. We were leaning into digital publishing with all our might when our competitors were downsizing their operations because of that digital disruption. In late 2021, we then acquired Meredith. “ 

He continues: “The earlier combination of Meredith and Time Inc. boasted 30+ brands such as the iconic People, Food + Wine, Southern Living, and Travel & Leisure, all of which had incredible heritage but lacked digital reach. We brought our digital expertise to Meredith's brands, aiming to modernize these iconic assets and unlock their true potential.”

Here's one more revelation: “We recognized the coming reality of zero search traffic years ago, successfully transitioning out of depending upon search engines for our traffic to create our own ecosystem which has resulted in a broad diversity in audience sources.”

Diller adds: “I do believe we have an unlimited opportunity to build a unique new day publishing model that has no equal in its ability to grow into a large enterprise.  Under Neil Vogel's leadership, People's outstanding editorial and business staff and 3,500 employees, we deliver the most diversified expertise across our 40+ brands and the six 'books' we continue to publish in print. And publish, in the old sense we still do, and profitably, to the tune of shipping 250 million magazines a year.”

And he boasts: “All this activity over these past three decades has resulted in creating over $144 billion of value at peak equity prices.”

Why this refocusing?

“In the last few years, ecommerce and interactivity valuations soared, new opportunities became fewer, and we began to scale down our acquisition activities to concentrate on the one sector we felt had the most potential in such a fast changing environment, that of the publishing businesses we'd built and acquired over the last 14 years.”

Don’t send your congratulations just yet. Deadline reports that an SEC filing by the predicts cost savings of $40 million per year, $14 million in severance and $48 million in non-cash stock-based compensation expense.

Last October, People, Inc. laid off 226 employees, 6% of its total staff. Diller did not mention any layoffs in his letter. 

We will see how all that will turn out. But for now, give him this: Diller is playing to the company's strength.