For sale: Johnston Press (JPR) – newspaper publisher, owner of the i and 200 regional publications. Just £3m market capitalisation. A bargain. Prospective new owners should be aware of £220m-worth of debt which is due for refinancing in June 2019 and a £40m pension deficit. Any takers?
By hoisting up a ‘for sale’ sign, management at Johnston Press is clearly hoping to entice media rivals which are using consolidation to deal with the modern challenges of publishing. After all, advertising revenues at the online-focused i newspaper rose 20 per cent in the half year to June 2018. But there’s no escaping the group’s debilitating liabilities – the unhappy result of many years of debt-fuelled growth. The interest costs paid on the debt have risen to £19m a year meaning Johnston Press reported a net loss of £80m in 2017. Meanwhile, the pension deficit swallows up £10m a year but is still over 13 times the group’s market capitalisation.
