Fairfax profit decline accelerates
The decline in Fairfax Media’s annual profits has accelerated, the company has signalled to the market.
In an update released to the Australian Stock Exchange this morning, Fairfax Media said that its full year profits would be around $500m – down nearly 18% on last year’s $607.4m, which were in turn down 5% on the previous year.
The company said that so far in 2012, revenues have sunk by 8% compared to the same time last year.
Referring to the “difficult” environment, CEO Greg Hywood said in a statement: “This trading environment has continued and the company expects revenue for the second half to be approximately 8% below last year.
“Assuming current trading conditions remain, the company expects to report underlying earnings before interest, tax, deprecation and amortisation (EBITDA) of circa $500 million.”
At the time of posting Fairfax was trading at a near historic low of 59c a share, valuing the company at $1.4bn. The company said that it will have a net debt at the end of the year of just below $1.1bn.
Meanwhile, talks with staff over plans to outsource regional production jobs to New Zealand are due to come to an end at close of business today.
Fairfax’s portfolio includes newspapers the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age and radio stations including 2UE and 3AW.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Bye Bye Fairfax. What sad sad day it was when those great radio stations were purchased by Fairfax.
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If they are projecting a decline to $500m in gross profit, it will be interesting to see what their profit margin will be…
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“Underlying” profit is spin.
A signal of some big “adjustment” costs, so it won’t be $500m.
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