Metal Bulletin warns on profits

METAL Bulletin has warned it will miss City profit targets after revenues at its flagship publication, after which the company is named, fell £450,000 in the first three months of this year.

Demand for advertising and subscriptions for the twice-weekly journal remained very weak. The firm said profits for the year will probably be 5% lower than those of last year. Profits last year were £8.5m, before one-offs and amortisation, and now seem likely to be only £8m this year. This is well below analysts' expectations of £9.5m.

The shares plunged 22 1/2p, or 9.5%, to 212 1/2p as the news was given to shareholders at today's annual meeting. Chairman Brian Moritz said: 'To date we have seen no upturn in the majority of the markets we serve and the global metals market remains particularly weak.'

Sales for the first quarter rose 14%, after the £37m acquisitions of rival publication American Metal Market and Canadian financial research group BCA. But when these are stripped out, revenues for existing businesses were down by 13%. That is mainly due to the fall in advertising demand. One bright area is conferences and exhibitions, which by the end of March and continuing into April saw revenues return to pre-11 September levels.

Moritz added: 'The financial information division continues to perform well, reflecting the significant contribution from BCA. The integration of American Metal Market is on track, and in April we implemented the switch to a weekly printed newspaper supplemented by a daily electronic version.'