INM half-year profit down

INDEPENDENT News and Media Group chief Gavin O’Reilly has reported a half year operating profit of €23.1 million, down from €46.3m on the same period last year.

However, the Dublin based publisher posted first-half net loss of €17.5m, compared with a €27m profit a year ago. Its net debt is down by €91m from €543.2m to €452.1m.

Revenue for the group fell by 12% to €284.6m, mainly because of the disposal of the London Independent titles last year and the still weak domestic demand in Ireland.

Mr O’Reilly said they were targeting a full year operating profit of between €78 and €83m, sending the shares up more than 7%.

Despite a drop of about 11,000 (7.4%) in circulation of the Irish Independent over the past six months to 134,228 Mr O’ Reilly was still upbeat about the future and said “people are still buying the papers but not with the frequency they might and that is because they are watching the pennies”.

However, he hoped the worst was over and they could look forward to better times.

Referring to the recent closure of the News of the World he said it had resulted in a “good uplift” for the Sunday Independent and Sunday World.

Mr O’Reilly said they had been focused on operating costs which were already down 2.6% year on year while at the same time prudently investing in a market share strategy and digital expansion.

“Without exception all our titles are profitable and their aggregate cash performance yielded further progress towards our stated objective of significantly de-leveraging, said Mr O’Reilly.

“Our net debt at June 30 last was €452m — almost 17% or €91m less than it was 12 months ago. Debt repayments are ahead of plan and we have comfortably complied with all our financial covenants and have no significant debt maturities until May 2014,” said the newspaper chief.

He said that the directors do not propose recommending an interim dividend for this year and believe there is currently greater scope to create shareholders value through continued debt pay down.