FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES brought on by the nagging global economic downturn have led the board of the RJR Communications Group to instruct its management to carry out a restructuring exercise.

Gary Allen, managing director of the RJR Communications Group, told The Sunday Gleaner that the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) was advised on Friday about the impending exercise.

Allen revealed that the JSE had been told that the board had "authorised management to carry out a restructuring exercise to address the deepening financial problems and the negative impact it has been having on the group with a view to ensuring that the company remains profitable".

Allen explained that because the media group was a publicly listed company, it was obligated to inform the JSE about the board's directive.

Things are more difficult

Employees have also been briefed. The RJR managing director said, "Almost simultaneous to carrying out the board mandate, I was also saying to staff ... things are getting more difficult and the board has now asked management to actually look at a restructuring exercise."

Allen said the restructuring exercise was still being fashioned, emphasising that no final decisions had been taken.

Allen, who ascended to the managing director's chair in October 2008, said the decision to restructure was taken at the company's regular board meeting on Thursday where the media group's performance was examined.

"The company is now clear that all of the measures that we have taken since October to contain cost, that those measures are not having the desired effect," he stated.

Allen added that the general intention of the restructuring was to "redesign how the company operates and functions with the general intention of reducing costs to try and match the reduction in advertising spend, as well as, the continued high level of operations cost that we have".