Yellow Pages' bankers take control after $1.05b write-off

Yellow Pages' bankers take control after $1.05b write-off

Jan. 26 (BusinessDesk) - Yellow Pages Group's bankers have taken ownership of the company after writing off $1.05 billion of debt.

The “restructuring” will allow “the new entity to operate on a sound commercial basis, given its highly satisfactory trading performance,” the senior lenders said in a statement.

“The company now has a capital value of $750 million which gives it strong long-term sustainability on its recent annual profit performance of $143 million,” the statement said.

Earlier this month, Yellow Pages posted a $1.44 billion annual net loss which included a $1.61 billion impairment write-off of the value of its goodwill and brand name.

The $143.3 million trading profit was flat even though revenue fell 7.6% to $274.4 million.

The lenders have appointed a new board with Andrew Day as chairman. Day was a non-executive director of Yellow Pages until April last year and was a former chief executive of Australia-based Telstra's yellow and white pages division.

Other board members include former MediaWorks chief executive Brent Impey, Skellerup and Ebos director Elizabeth Coutts, Colorado-based Scott Pomeroy and Sydney-based Paul Wilson.

Day said the new corporate structure could provide certainty for staff, customers and “external stakeholders.”

“We are focused on growth and increased profitability and will be moving quickly to build on the strong operational fundamentals that the Yellow Pages Group has maintained throughout the global recession,” he said.

Telecom sold Yellow Pages in 2007 for $2.24 billion in a leveraged buy-out to Hong Kong-based Unitas Capital and Canada's Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan whose equity is now completely lost.

(BusinessDesk)

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