Brace yourselves, ladies-- Trader Monthlyhas shut down (as has owner DoubleDown media). In an e-mail to staff last night, President Randall Lane-- who was described last week as having "lost a grip on reality and is acting like a caged animal who knows he's about to be slaughtered"-- wrote:
Regretfully, we have some very bad news to share. The bank that's been supplying our credit line for the past year, an affiliate of HSBC, has ceased to provide working capital for Doubledown Media. Thus, this forces us to suspend operations effective immediately.
I cannot begin to convey how heartbroken we are. These are unprecedented times: the combination of the media depression, the Wall Street implosion and the credit slowdown were collectively too much for our company -- probably any company in our shoes -- to overcome.
We are owed a substantial seven-figure sum by various advertisers and business partners, but as with everyone else in media, payments to us have slowed precipitously, which is turn has crippled our ability to pay our bills on time. This slowdown also led to the bank's decision not to continue to fund the working capital.
Also probably at issue was the diminished appetite for circus freaks like Tim Sykes, who was unleashed on the world by TM back in 2006. Father and son have since had a bit of a falling out, and we would not be doing our parts if we did not let latter use this as a platform to perform what he seems to believe is an end-zone victory dance. Sayeth Sykes:
Randy's memo about the environment being "too much to overcome" smacks of the same kind of BS that got him in trouble in the first place...I--the Ryan Leaf of trading--somehow have "overcome" and built a million dollar publishing business in less than a year...if only he would grow up, maybe one day, maybe one day...
