Sharewatch: Highbury Boosted By Board Investment
Magazine publisher Highbury House saw a strong performance last week, with shares rising by 20.93% week on week, despite an earlier warning that the company will fail to meet investor expectations later this year.
The boost to share price was helped by the purchase of 971,000 shares by the group’s chief executive, chairman and finance director last month. The publisher had announced that it will not be paying an interim or final dividend to investors, despite seeing a 24% jump in revenue during the first half of 2004 (see Highbury House Unable To Meet Full-Year Expectations).
Elsewhere advertising giant WPP notched up a rise of 4.21% week on week, closing at 544˝p on Friday as the company announced job cuts at newly acquired American advertising group Grey Global in a bid to reduce costs and boost profits (see WPP Planning To Cut 7% Of Jobs At Grey).
Future Publishing lost 1.32% from its share price in week on week analysis, despite the announcement last week of several new titles. The niche consumer publisher plans to spawn at least nine new magazines over the next 12 months, hoping to tap in to the US action sports sector to boost group revenues in 2005 (see Future To Launch Raft Of Titles Over Next Year).
The closing prices of media company shares on Friday were:
