Ads surge puts Indy in the money

INDEPENDENT News & Media, owner of The Independent newspaper, today declared it was seeing healthy growth in advertising revenues.

In a scheduled trading statement Independent News said that it expected group advertising revenues to show high single-digit percentage growth in the first six months of this year and low single-digit growth in circulation revenues.

The group forecast increased operating margins, the result of a focus on driving down costs, and added that it 'remained confident of, and expects, a meaningful improvement in underlying profit for the full year of 2005, in line with current market expectations'.

On a visit last week to South Africa, where Independent News owns a number of newspapers, chief operating officer Gavin O'Reilly said he expected group earnings per share to grow 15%-16% this year while revenue would rise around 9%-10%.

He also confirmed he was happy with analysts' forecasts for annual earnings per share of around 16 euro cents. Independent News publishes 166 newspaper and magazine titles in nine countries.