The unsolicited body counts keep on coming in.  The fresh news is that two more top editors have left BNP’s new baby, Stagnito, one a senior editor from Confectioner Magazine.

Out of the 100 employees that were part of Stagnito when the acquisition was made, the seven Stagnitos (it was a family run business), three editors, two marketers, Mary Mazur, Sue Ranvenscraft, and one more person from the circ department.  Of the two people left in the circ department, one is “looking,” according to my sources, and the other is “about one year from retirement.”  My sources also indicate that the HR person and is looking as is the head of marketing.

And the mood: “I talked to another editor the other day and he is just staying quietly in the background, he is afraid to make waves, as he need the job until he finds another,” says one source.

I come back from a meeting and am delighted to find a comment on my blog. If you haven’t figured it out already, I’m pretty enthusiastic about this B2B media space we operate in and love talking about it with anyone who will listen. But this comment wasn’t a comment at all. It was the in-house announcement heralding the end of the Cam Bishop era and the beginning of the Vicki Masseria era at Ascend Media.

First, I’m not very surprised at this announcement. Things have been unraveling at Ascend since early in the year when new drug launch advertising slowed down and the pipeline didn’t look promising. Then the dental group continued to struggle. By early May, the Stagnito food group, one of the most successful divisions of the company was quietly for sale. And then it was sold. Along with EXPO magazine. And then three pubs were shuttered. And now this: Bishop out, Masseria in.

(Technically, Bishop is staying on as chairman. This company was built by him, Ron Wall, and an often bickering group of finance guys, one side from VSS and the other from CCMP Capital. From what I know, Cam sweats for Ascend. So I don’t question his dedication to the project. But my guess is this move is not a promotion. The reasons? If I had to guess, I would guess these: 1. The company is not performing well, at least in part due to market conditions; 2. It is very hard work working with–and between–competing and antagonistic teams of PE guys…it wore down on him; 3. Due to both 1 and 2, the company is not headed towards where Bishop wanted it to go when he formed it all those years ago…and that can take the wind out of your sails. More on this in this week’s issue of min’s b2b.)

But what interests me most about this at this point is that it was effectively announced as a comment on my blog. And not on the most current story, but the last story I wrote about Ascend. Is this new?

I was sent a tip today that Ascend’s Physician’s Money Digest will be shuttering after the November issue, and that Family Practice Recertification and Internal Medicine World Report will fold at the end of the year.  I called Will Passano, division president, and Cam Bishop, CEO of the company, and left messages.  I also emailed Bishop.  No response so far. (If you have more news on this story, please email me at jgreenfield@accessintel.com.)

This is just more negative news coming out of a company that seemed to have so much promise when it was formed.   This year alone, Ascend has sold its top-performing division (Stagnito) to BNP Media, and lost a top executive in Ron Wall.  When I’ve spoken to top executives at Ascend about the state of the company this past year, they’ve said the right things, but didn’t sound to happy or confident.

Meanwhile, Wall goes to Apprise Media, and is now part of an organization that has increased revenues by 33% and profits by 55% in the two years it has existed, the company announced today: both through acquisition and organic growth.

Troubles that we’ve seen this year at Ascend, BNP/Stagnito, and Cygnus are unfortunate for those companies, the people that work there, and the industry as a whole, but these strong profit and revenue increases from Apprise go to show that the news isn’t always all bad, even in a print-challeneged 2007.

Unless you scrolled down on my blog and viewed all of the comments that people have left, you may have missed the following tidbit from an “insider” (self-proclaimed) at BNP/Stagnito:

“I think that everyone is waiting to see what will happen after the first of the year.  I heard that over 50% of the employees have a resume out.  I find that most people at BNP are rude and treat us as if we are fresh out of school and have never worked in the business world before.   It is all very demoralizing. Actually I feel like a grade schooler that has been sent to the princlple’s office.  There is still no laughter in the halls and most people’s response it’s a job for the momment.”

My guess is that 50% is an exaggeration, but it seems like there’s still a lot of negative buzz in the halls at BNP/Stagnito.  Maybe an article about how the company seems to be doing well from an ad page standpoint from min’s b2b would brigten their spirits.

I was having lunch today with a friend in the industry.  We had both been watching some of the B2B deals that have gone through in the past year or so.  While the mega-deal of the year involved the expansion of an already huge Penton Media into the second largest diversified B2B media company in the country, the other two that we discussed saw the formation of two very different kind of companies.

Bill Reilly’s Summit Business Media, although it has plans to get very large, is focused on the service industries–finance, accounting, insurance, etc–exclusively at this point.  And Paul Mackler’s HMP Communications is focused on health.  In fact, last week, Bill Colbert told me for min’s b2b that he, along with VSS, his PE backer, was going to focus on building a single-industry company.  And Ascend Media has recently gone from diversification with Stagnito (health and food) to focus.

Will the new generation of B2B startups aspire to the Reed/Penton/Cygnus model?  Or will they be more focused?

According to one of the many sources inside Stagnito, BNP’s recent acquisition, that have come to me since the closing of the deal, Dairy Field and Dairy Foods are being combined into one publication. I imagine that the publication will continue to be known as Dairy Foods (the BNP title), but I think it would probably benefit from some rebranding, ala a new title, that is if it is going to be a larger, more inclussive magazine. If what is happening is that Field is just being shuttered, then I’d see no reason for a name change.

I’ve also heard that Stagnito’s New Product Review is going to be repositioned. This was the word, however, that Tagg Henderson used when he was telling me about the possible plans for Dairy Field. If the company is going to reposition SNPR the same way it did Field, I’d say it was a good business, move, though a sad one for a long-standing and proud brand.

Last week, when complaints to me from Stagnito employees were at a fever pitch, I thought it prudent to call the company and, first, assess the veracity of the claims, and, second, make them aware that I was hearing a lot of complaints if they were somehow unaware of the unrest. I ended up speaking with Rita Foumia, the HR director at BNP. Here’s what she had to say:

“We aren’t setting up new rules. What we have in place as company policies and procedures we have to enforce for all employees. We’re not going to set up special rules and implement them for Stagnito employees.“

Regarding the abolition of all unofficial telecommuting agreements between managers and employees:

“If they have a telecommuting agreement in place, that’s the way it’s going to stay. If we have someone that doesn’t have a written, formal agreement, then we don’t know about it. We don’t have any documentation on that, and it’s my responsibility to follow up with everybody. Until then, they have to come into the office. The problem is that we have a loty of people working from home whenever they want to, and we can’t have that.”

Regarding taking away vacation days accrued throughout the year and giving employees only five vacation days the rest of the year:

“Ascend had said they were not going to pay out the vacation days of its Stagnito employees. But now, Ascend is paying the unused/accrued vacation. They got their checks today [this was last week], with a letter from Ascend. We gave them an additional five days for the rest of the year.”

Regarding not giving employees the employee manual immediately:

“Our manual is on the intranet. And they all have access to it now. What we didn’t want to do is overwhelm anybody. The biggest concerns they’d have is employment and benefits. We all wanted to make sure that they all got paid the same way they did before the transaction happened.“

And, in summary:

“We’re trying to make it as smooth as of a transition as possible. We have to implement our policies.“

This may all be true, but the fact is, I’m still hearing from my sources that there is widespread unrest at Stagnito. I’ve heard that many employees are actively searching for new work. If so, that’s bad news for BNP.

Recently, I’ve been getting a lot of calls and emails from Stagnito staffers unhappy with their new digs. I think this is an important story to follow because it–and other M&A activity, especially between strategics–can be a valuable case study in handling human resources during mergers.

Some things that I’ve heard:

- BNP has not provided Stagnito employees with a BNP employee handbook. One of the most important things to communicate to new employees–of any kind–is what their benefits are. I can understand, being an employee myself, why that might cause some anxiety in the ranks.

- Employees are asked to be at their desks by 8:30 AM, and the HR person checks. This reminds me of middle school, and doesn’t seem like the right way to treat a workforce.

- Lunches have been reduced to 30 minutes. Many employees used to like to leave the office for lunch, but the short lunch time (combined with the school-marm like attention to time at desk) doesn’t allow for that.

I’ve also heard that employees think that next week the first set of layoffs will be announced. Tagg Henderson, CEO of BNP, told me in an interview that they did not plan on laying anyone off and did not plan on shuttering any books. I like and respect Tagg, but I find this a little hard to believe. I don’t see BNP keeping Stagnito’s New Product Review or Dairy Fields around for much longer. And that, inevitably, will lead to layoffs.

During mergers, the new managers have to be careful to keep their employees relatively happy and calm. In our business, where virtually every product is a manifestation of the personalities that produce it, you don’t want a cranky workforce.

One aspect of M&A that is often overlooked by those of us that follow it is what happens to the daily lives of the employees that are affected by the moves. Some lose jobs, others get promoted, and many pass through relatively unscathed. In the case of the Stagnito employees, scathed might be more apt.

Word from employees at Stagnito is that Ascend has decided to retroactively not match its employees’ 401k contributions in 2007. For those people who contribute 10-15% of their incomes to their 401k, this is a huge financial blow, and one that was certainly not planned for.

I had heard at the ABM Spring Meeting in May that Stagnito was for sale. A few weeks later, we printed an analysis of Ascend’s food books (Stagnito) in min’s b2b. A few weeks later, the volume was turned up on the rumor, and we discussed it here. But it wasn’t until late June that we pegged BNP as a possible strategic buyer.

Now that it’s happened, and a directly competitive strategic has taken over the growing Stagnito business (growing according to Cam Bishop, CEO of Ascend; although the properties are down in ad pages: 1.44%, according to our exclusive group publishers’ coverage, which begins this week in min’s b2b), what is to be done with Stagnito?

I’ve been in contact with a source inside the company, and, apparently, the mood in the trenches is not one of jubilation. There is some uncertainty as to what will happen with the brands. The Stagnitos have already said their goodbyes to the staff. And I can’t help but think of how some of the integration between previously competitive brands at Penton has gone–so far.