By: E&P Staff In a New Year's Eve letter to shareholders, Lee Enterprises Chairman, President and CEO Mary Junck said the company outpaced its peers in print and Web revenue in what "was surely one of the toughest years ever in the newspaper industry."
Reviewing the year -- in which Wall Street hammered Lee's stock price 41% -- Junck outlined reasons she said Lee remains optimistic about its company and the newspaper industry.
Lee outperformed other newspaper chains in several areas, Junck contended, although outperforming often meant not falling as fast as its peers.
For instance, Junck said Lee "consistently and dramatically outpaced peers in financial revenue performance." Lee led in retail, classified, total advertising, and total operating revenue performance, she stated.
"For the year, our same property ad revenue slipped only 0.3% versus a Newspaper Association of America (NAA) average decline of 5.6%," she wrote.
Similarly, she noted, the combined circulations of Lee newspapers declined 1.7% on weekdays and 0.7% on Sundays against an industry average of 2.6% daily and 3.5% Sundays.
Like other newspaper companies, Lee experienced rapid growth in its Web and online income. Junck said Lee's "blistering pace of 57.5%" was more than twice the industry average.
Without giving specifics, Junck also said that its biggest daily, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "outperformed other major metros," posting gains in employment and automotive classified advertising and more than doubling online revenue.
In 2007, Lee generated strong cash flow that allowed it to pay down its debt by a net $135 million.
Lee's year-end revenue from continuing operations of $1.128 was off "only" 0.1% from last year, Junck added.
She also warned shareholders, however, that the first quarter of 2008 will be a down one, suffering from comparables from an "exceptionally good" Q1 in 2006, plus one fewer publishing day because of a change in financial reporting.
Nearing the end of trading Monday, Lee stock (NYSE: LEE) was trading at $14.58, up 6-cents, or 0.41%.
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