SMG announces 90% debt decrease with financial results
Scottish Media Group has today released its financial figures, which show that the has cut its debt by over 90% leaving it to owe £15.1million as opposed to the £189.4 million that it held 12 months ago.
Following a year in which the company has offloaded assets such as Virgin Radio to Times of India Group for £53.2 million, of which around £30 million went to shareholders, today's figures revealed that SMG's EPS had increased by 43% over the last year, up to 0.43p each while its profit before tax was £4.2 million in comparison to last year when it made only £1 million.
While it has also held several rounds of voluntary redundancies as it reduced its wage bill and agreed a new deal with sports broadcaster, Setanata, making it in excess of £75 million so far.
The company has also announced that it will rebrand from SMG to STV Group.
Rob Woodward, chief executive, said; “SMG is now operationally lean, commercially focussed and creatively successful. We are outperforming in difficult market conditions and well positioned to deliver the Broadcasting, Content and Ventures growth we have promised.”
Richard Findlay, chairman, commented; “We have made great progress on our 2008 targets and despite challenging market conditions we remain confident of our ability to achieve the goals we set out and that our core television business will continue to move forward in line with our growth strategy”