In addition to the sale of Outdoor Canada and Canadian Home Workshop to Quarto Communications there were a number of staffing and management changes at Transcontinental yesterday.

Patricia Moylan, national sales director for the two magazines was let go in the sale because Quarto will be continuing to use its sales team for the new books, says Pierre Marcoux, senior vice president, business and consumer solutions group at Transcontinental.

Magazine veteran Deborah Trepanier, publisher of Style at Home and Canadian Gardening, was let go. Caroline Andrews, publisher of The Hockey News and TvGuide.ca will now be responsible for Trepanier’s titles.

In addition, a senior editor at Canadian Gardening as well as staff members in reception, circulation and accounting were laid off — six in all. 

Marcoux says these staffing changes are necessary because Transcontinental has gone down three titles in the past year and personnel levels need to reflect that. “It is unfortunate that there were layoffs, it always is,” he says. “It’s one of the worst things to do.” He notes that none of the layoffs were performance based.