Creditors to wrest control of Yellow Pages as brand gives up the ghost
Yellow Pages owner Hibu is expected to hand control of the directory to its creditors as early as Thursday after throwing in the towel on shrinking a colossal £2.3bn debt mountain and in the teeth of increased competition from the likes of Google.
It follows a collapse in the firms market value from £5bn to just £7m and will wipe out shareholders in the former FTSE 100 company.
Chief executive Mike Pocock is understood to be negotiating a debt for equity swap with 300 lenders which would reduce its debt to less than £1bn.
Hibu rebranded from Yell last year as the firm desperately sought to reposition itself as a local search engine and marketplace which could link shoppers to businesses closest to them whilst developing new digital products.