Poor Warner Media. I was just reading about how messed up WBD is following the AT&T debacle and I was wondering to myself, 'what went so wrong'. So, like a true att employee, I asked Google. Funny thing is that the problems that ki-led what should have been the deal of a lifetime are still here!
Financial mismanagement, soaring debt, cultural and social conflicts, strategic failures, poor leaders and inconsistent leadership, execution & delivery problems, and, att's goto optimization strategy, layoffs!
It is shameful to think that the same leaders who destroyed a film industry pioneer are doing the same thing to a telecom pioneer and we are watching it happen in real time. I hope i'm wrong but I believe this Plano relo will be the final nail in the coffin for AT&T. Our leadership knows what they are doing. Think about this, we are sitting on $140 BILLION in debt.
Put in in perspective. When you are in debt, what do you do? You tighten the belt. Cut some cost, cancel some streaming services. Do you sell your house? Maybe, but that's like the last ditch effort. Let me remind you of an old company called Sears Roebuck. Remember them? They were on top of the world and had this iconic skyscraper. Then, things started unraveling. Sears tried to acquire businesses but was never able to capitalize. They tried pushing their brand on everything and everywhere. Soaring debt sent them to a large corporate park on the outskirts of Chicago. Sears was a blue-chip, dividend market leader. They were literally the amazon of the 20th century. They even had a sports stadium. Where are they now? 5 stores, a website, distribution agreements, and a brand that they pray someone, someday, will want to reboot.
There's your future, people. We are Sears.
Sorry Warner. Best of luck.