(..whoar..!..)..”Yellow Pages in $338m loss”.. (that’s nearly a mill a day..every day..for the last year..!..)
“.. Yellow Pages Group has posted a net loss of $338 million as big debts weighed down the business and the recession constrained spending on its directories listings.
Chief executive Bruce Cotterill said that like a lot of big private equity deals ..
.. the acquisition of Yellow Pages by investors including the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, happened at the peak of the boom in 2007 ..
.. and the market now looked very different.
The investors paid Telecom $2.2 billion for Yellow Pages and forked out $191m in interest payments in the year to June to service the $1.7b of debt that was taken on to fund the acquisition.
Net equity fell to $232m, meaning the company ended the year with a gearing ratio of 88 per cent.
“The issues we are grappling with … are related to the purchase price paid ..
.. and the capital structure that was put in place when the company was bought from Telecom,” Mr Cotterill said.
“Our job is to manage our way through that.
It has nothing to do with the fundamentals around the business itself.”
The company this year outsourced the handling of its 018 directory services business to a call centre in Manila.
But Mr Cotterill indicated there was limited scope for further cost-cutting ..
.. saying that while Yellow Pages was watching its costs like all businesses .. it was not a fat business..”
(no..!..it would seem to be just about to die from starvation..eh..?..)
go to source/story>>Yellow Pages in $338m loss - business | Stuff.co.nz
March 11th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
The Yellow Pages were born of an era when one of the only ways to publish info was to advertise in their directories. I worked there 2008-09 to help with the online endeavors and while I have nothing but respect for CEO Mr Cotterill, who was brought in late to try and save this company, it became obvious early on that some of their middle managers are complete idiots. In the end, after winning many sales awards, I was unceremoniously fired for daring to suggest old methods where not good enough while in such a hole. So to read now they are destroying capital at rate of approx a milion dollars/day brings some vindication. Firing or losing the productive winner personalities in the long run can only reduce their chance of survival and increase inertia of the death spiral they would seem now to be in. Also, it does not help that we are now in an are where any business can publish what they want through the internet… I doubt very much we have heard the last of this.
March 12th, 2010 at 4:41 am
the print version of the yellow pages is acquiring all the relevance of ‘;the farriers-monthly-almanac’..
phil..
March 14th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Well, what do you know? A mere three days later, this article appears on front page of biz section, NZ Sunday Star Times, confirming sorry state of affairs at Yellow NZ; http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/3446768/Yellow-Pages-feels-heat-as-debts-mount
It would be my guess that this has been timed to ‘ready’ the NZ public for what is going to happen “eventually” as CEO Cotterill puts it, and/or before they have to publish their 2010 financial reports. From my perspective as having been an insider, it certainly looks like middle management of this company made some totally ‘daffy’ decisions, and may ultimately be responsible for NZ’s most spectacular corporate bankruptcy. I sure wouldn’t want it on my CV any more than say having been a top sales manager at the now radio-active Hannover Finance…