Bloomberg News Sheds Senior Staff

Bloomberg News has quietly shed dozens of experienced reporters and editors this year — including some of its most senior staff — as its owner Michael Bloomberg considers selling its parent company ahead of a possible presidential run in 2020, The NYPost is reporting.

At least 43 reporters and editors, most of them in New York, are known to have left the sprawling news operation this year, according to interviews and a list of recent departures.

The departures, especially of old-guard editors, have current and former employees fretting that the financial news giant is in cost-cutting mode in preparation of a sale of its parent company, Bloomberg LP.

Michael Bloomberg

In the last week alone, at least four senior editors have been laid off.

They include Bob Brennan, a markets editor first hired in 1993; John Lippert, a senior writer who covered the auto industry, first hired in 1995; Chuck Stevens, most recently an editor at Daybreak, a fast-news product, hired in 1996, and Faris Khan, a senior editor covering corporate finance who joined in 2010, the company confirmed.

Older editors at the financial news operation can make upwards of $250,000 a year, while new hires can make about a quarter of that, former employees have told The Post.

As reported by The Post, 76-year-old Bloomberg has been discussing the possibility of selling his company among a small group of top executives, including Chairman Peter Grauer, since at least October.

The company has been looking to increase operational profits by about 3 percent ahead of any sale, which could take the form of either a buyout or an IPO, sources said.

The Post reports that Bloomberg was considering shedding his namesake company, which includes the Bloomberg Radio Network and radio stations in Boston and New York. “It would either go into a blind trust or I would sell it. I think at my age, if selling it is possible, I would do that,” he told Radio Iowa.

Those named on the list of departures appeared to have left in a mix of layoffs and voluntary separations, including those who have gone on to CNBC, the New York Times and other outlets, according to interviews with those who left. The Post independently confirmed the names on the list.