Yell reports £1.4bn loss
Debt-laden Yell Group posted a £1.42bn full year loss mostly due to a writedown of the value of operations and said it had appointed advisors to help put a new capital structure in place.
Yell, best known for its printed Yellow Pages directories and struggling under the burden of debts mostly maturing in April 2014, said on Tuesday its new generation of products was taking longer than expected to bear fruit.
It said it planned to consult with its lenders and shareholders to come up with a new capital structure within the coming financial year, and said it had appointed Goldman Sachs and Greenhill as advisers on the process.
The company’s net debt stood at £2.2bn at 31 March.
Yell’s full-year loss arose from a goodwill impairment charge of about 1.21 billion pounds, mainly in relation to its operations in the United States, the UK, Spain, Chile and Peru. The yellow pages publisher’s revenue fell 14 percent to 1.61 billion pounds.
“Yell has not progressed as fast as it would like in bringing new products to market, with the sheer scale and logistics of the task stretching its nascent teams,” the company said in a statement.
The company also said it would change its name to hibu Plc, with the new name to become the brand name for its new product offerings. All the print products, which are sold under different brands in each country, will continue to be sold under those current brands.
Directory publishers like Yell and its Canadian counterpart Yellow Media Inc have struggled to stem the slide in their print businesses and pare huge debt loads, as more people turn to Internet-based giants like Google to find local listings.