Johnston Press' shares down after FY impairment-driven loss and revenue fall

Shares in Johnston Press are down almost 12% as it reversed to an impairment-driven pre-tax loss on lower revenue for its full year continuing operations, with an expectation there would be continued pressure on industry traditional print revenue streams.

It said pre-tax loss for the period was £300.3m, from a profit of £2.2m. The company's revenue fell 8% to £222.7m, from £242.1m. Its statutory pre-tax loss included a non-cash impairment of £223.9m in H1, and £120.4m in H2.

"Despite an industry wide backdrop of significant downward pressure on revenues, the actions we have taken to pilot the business through this rapidly-changing market and create the conditions from which to create growth are starting to bear fruit," said chief executive Ashley Highfield.

The CEO said circulation figures of key titles were improving, the i had bucked the trend of declining national newspaper sales and the company's progressive editorial and sales models were starting to transform its regional businesses.

"While we can expect to see continued pressure on traditional print revenue streams, we have seen digital return to growth in Q1 2017, with better margin products, and will see growth from our investment in the i from both the newspaper and website," Highfield said.

"Further, we will start to see the benefits of our restructured sales teams and product roll out."

Looking more closely at revenue composition, that from total advertising (print & digital) fell 17.7% to £122.6m. Excluding classifieds, print advertising revenue was down 9.5% to £61.3m and digital was down 0.2% to £18.6m. Circulation revenue rose 11.0% to £79.9m.

At 10:48 GMT, shares in Johnston Press were down 11.36% to 19.5p each.