Johnston Press shares fall after announcing £113m loss

The publisher’s losses were lower than the £429.3 million loss reported in the previous year and came on the back of a drop in revenue from £531.9 million to £428.0 million.

The losses were attributed to a “significant decline” in advertising revenues, especially in the first part of 2009, and were partly offset by “substantial cost savings”.

Despite the losses Johnston said that it had seen a return to stability in its markets since the second quarter of 2009.

Like for like advertising fell by 26.5 per cent from 2008. However the rate of decline did slow throughout the year falling from a like for like drop of 33.9 per cent in the first quarter to a drop of 11.2 per cent in the final quarter of the year.

Newspaper sales revenue fell 1.8 per cent on a like for like basis while net debt fell by £55.3 million to £422.1 million.

John Fry, Chief Executive of Johnston Press, said, “The year ended with the Group in a much stronger position than it began: advertising is more stable; circulation trends have improved; digital revenues are growing; our cost base has reduced significantly and we have renegotiated finance facilities for 3 years. We are therefore well positioned to take advantage of any upturn as it occurs. Since the successful refinancing of our debt announced at the end of August 2009 we have been trading in line with the expectations we had at the time. That being the case we have no immediate plans to raise capital”

By 14:30 shares in Johnston Press were down 0.88 per cent to 28.00 pence per share.