By Paul Sandle
LONDON (Reuters) - The publisher of Britain's Daily Mail (L:DMGOa) newspaper said revenue and profit would decline in its media business over the coming year, with the tough outlook for the print business sending its shares 25 percent lower.
Daily Mail & General Trust reported a 13 percent decline in pretax profit in the year to the end of September despite its highly popular MailOnline website moving into the black in the last three months.
In common with other newspaper groups, DMGT is battling tough print advertising markets and long-term declines in circulation.
However, its titles have been outperforming rivals and retain a strong influence on British politics and its comments on what it termed "challenging market conditions" had particular resonance.
Chief Executive Paul Zwillenberg, who joined 18 months ago to overhaul a company that stretches from MailOnline to business-to-business information, said the company needed to raise its game.
"Am I happy with the performance? No, not yet," he said.
Chief Financial Officer Tim Collier, who joined the business in April, said the print advertising market would remain difficult and circulation would stay under pressure.
"Last year we managed to offset those circulation declines and advertising decline with increasing cover prices across all three titles and this year we haven't got that," he said.
The company said the underlying rate of revenue decline in its media business was expected to be in the mid-single figures in its 2018 financial year, with the operating margin dropping to about 10 percent from 11 percent in the previous year.
"ADDICTIVE CONTENT"
Underlying revenue rose 1 percent in its media business over the past year, driven by an 18 percent rise in digital advertising on its site like MailOnline, which Zwillenberg said had "addictive, seriously popular" content.
Print advertising revenue at its Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and the Metro free sheet fell 5 percent, while cover price rises offset declines in circulations.
Analysts at Liberum, who downgraded their recommendation from "Buy" to "Hold", said the guidance looked underwhelming, with the disappointment coming in the consumer media side of the business, where they had expected revenue to be flat.
"What is clear is that DMGT faces another year of "transformation" but it is not entirely clear when we will get the acceleration of top-line growth," they said.
Collier said he had reviewed DMGT's business-to-business units, and had written down the assets by 206 million pounds, reflecting challenges in the trading environment for its energy and property information businesses.
He said he had also decided to sell its EDR, its U.S. commercial real estate environmental information business.
DMGT reported pretax profit of 226 million pounds on revenue of 1.66 billion pounds in the year to end-September, up 1 percent on an underlying basis.