A hiring freeze at Endeavor Group Holdings will take effect after Thanksgiving, company president Mark Shapiro revealed at a conference hosted by Wall Street firm RBC Capital Markets.
“Once we get a well-deserved Thanksgiving for our employees,” Shapiro said, the move will be implemented. The exec said it is being planned “not because we’re seeing anything in the business,” but because of broader concerns about the economic climate. “We need to really be prudent. We’re in or walking into a recession. We’ve got a war still going on, inflation’s where it’s at.” Recent tensions with China have also precipitated a lot of “fear” and “fear-mongering,” Shapiro added.
Stopping hiring is “first and foremost” on the company’s list of priorities for 2023, Shapiro said. “We just need a lean cost structure, quite frankly, as tight as we can have it. Hiring over the holidays is no good, you’re just giving them vacation anyway,” he said.
Endeavor reported having 7,700 employees in 29 countries as of the end of 2021. Shapiro didn’t indicate any particular areas of concern across the company’s diversified portfolio.
The company is joining a growing list of media and tech companies tightening the belt. Disney CEO Bob Chapek last week warned of cutbacks coming at the media giant, while Warner Bros Discovery has raised its target for cost savings related to the merger of predecessor companies WarnerMedia and Discovery. A portion of that $3.5 billion in savings will stem from staff reductions. Amazon, Meta Platforms and other tech behemoths have also been laying off staff amid gloomy market conditions.
In addition to holding off on adding staff, Shapiro said the company would be “continuing with debt paydown. At a time like this of uncertainty, we need to be conserving cash and working on the balance sheet.” As of the end of 2022, he said, the company would meet its stated goal of reducing net debt to less than four times trailing earnings, with the projected leverage ratio ending the year at 3.85 times.
