Record operating profit at Wilson & Horton

By Phil Boeyen, ShareChat Business News Editor

Tuesday 6th March 2001

Publisher Wilson & Horton (NZSE: WHHPA) has posted a solid gain in operating profit but its bottom-line has dipped into the red due to a foreign exchange loss.

The New Zealand Herald publisher had a record operating profit of $96.7 million for the year, up 12.3% on the previous result, however overall the company recorded a net loss of $2.4 million.

During 2000 the company says it restructured most of its foreign currency borrowings into New Zealand denominated debt, and as a result the interest charge has increased by $32.1million and it suffered foreign exchange losses of $34.2 million.

However it says the currency loss has no impact on Independent News & Media's consolidated profit and loss account under Irish Accounting Standards.

WHH is a wholly owned subsidiary of global media company Independent News. Upon maturity in 2003, holders of WHH cumulative exchangeable preference shares may elect to exchange one share for either $8.00 cash, or two INM ordinary shares.

At current share prices and exchange rates two INM shares are worth around NZ$12.42.

Wilson & Horton says underlying readership of its flagship New Zealand Herald paper rose very slightly, by less than 1%, but papers in regional areas fared better.

It says its print group had an excellent result, and advertising revenues at the New Zealand Woman's Weekly and Listener were also strong.

Since balance date the publisher says trading has met expectations but was marginally behind the extremely buoyant first quarter of last year, driven primarily from the America's Cup.

"The full year though is expected to show meaningful profit growth on 2000," the company said in a statement.

A fully imputed dividend of 20 cents per share has been declared.

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name:
Your email:	Not displayed to the public
Comment:
Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved.

Related News:

Magazines boast readership strength