UK magazine publisher, Highbury House Communications, has today released its pre-close trading statement, indicating that December trading in the Group’s UK Lifestyle division was patchy, with revenues for quarter four dropping by 7%, compared to 2003.
Total group revenues for 2004 were revealed to be £115 million, of which Highbury’s UK newsstand consumer business contributed nearly £70 million. Overall, as predicted in the Group’s December trading statement(see
Highbury House Has Disappointing Second Half Of Year), the UK Consumer divisions saw revenue from newsstand magazines from Q4 2004, drop by 3% compared to 2003, of which circulation revenue was 2% lower and advertising declined by 7%. On a like-for-like basis, taking into account titles closed in 2004, revenues were respectively lower by 2%, 1% and 5%.
The Highbury Lifestyle division, including Front, Real Homes, Fast Car and Gardens Monthly, performed poorly in Q4, with advertising and copy sales in the men’s lifestyle and home interest titles being weaker than expected. Nonetheless, the Group’s most profitable title, Fast Car, increased its share price, despite the tough sector.
Highbury Entertainment saw more robust trading, with Q4 revenues 3% higher than in 2003, the Group attributes this to a strong December for video games, home cinema, digital photography and PC. Profits in the Paragon Publishing division, acquired in August 2003(see Shareholders Approve Highbury’s £32m Paragon Acquisition), hit record levels in December, despite softer advertising revenues in the run-up to Christmas. Revenues enjoyed a stronger performance than Q4 in the previous year, seeing video games increase by 9% and computing by 3%.
Elsewhere in the UK, Highbury Business finished as predicted in Q4, confirming the recovery from 2003. Highbury Local was weakened slightly in December, due to soft property advertising, but has maintained its margins. Highbury Direct, also struggled last month, and incurred a small loss at the end of the year.
As a consequence of the reorganisation of the UK consumer operations in the past six months, a number of significant new appointments have been made to strengthen the publishing management in both UK consumer divisions. These include a new editor and publisher for Front magazine, senior managerial appointments in Highbury Entertainment and replacement staff joining the Group’s UK advertising sales department. These changes indicate a focus on cross-portfolio selling and an increased focus on customer needs.
The outlook for 2005 sees Highbury on a firmer footing, resulting from the changes made during 2004, with the Board expecting to announce an updated profit estimate for the year ended 31 December 2004 during the week ended 7 February 2005.
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