Wednesday morning business bulletin

Aug 27 2008 By Karen Dent

Housebuilder Taylor Wimpey said today that first-half underlying profits dived 96% to £4.3m as it wrestled with the housing market downturn.

The firm, which is the UK’s biggest homebuilder by number of properties built, racked up overall pre-tax losses of £1.54bn writing off £690m from the value of its land bank and another £816m in relation to the merger of Taylor Woodrow and George Wimpey last year.

Debt-laden Taylor Wimpey also said it was working to amend its borrowing agreements, and said it hoped these would be finalised by the end of the year.

Total group sales during the six months to June 30 were 8,494. This is down more than 30% from the 12,228 sold on a pro-forma basis during the same period last year.

Price comparison website Moneysupermarket.com reported higher earnings today but warned revenues growth was likely to slow in the current half year.

The company said limited product availability in the loans and mortgage markets meant revenues from its money-based division were down by around 10% in the third quarter on a strong trading period a year earlier.

Revenues in insurance and home services have remained strong, but overall moneysupermarket said trading in the quarter had been mixed.

In the first half of the year, the company increased revenues by 27% to £99.4m and saw underlying earnings improve by 14% to £30.1m.  Visitors to the group’s websites increased by 39% to 62m and transaction levels rose 37% to 39.6m.

Johnston Press today said tumbling returns from the property and job markets had left its advertising revenues down 21% on a year ago.

The group, which publishes titles including The Scotsman and The Star in Sheffield, axed its half-year dividend as it told shareholders that advertising trends continued to deteriorate.

Reporting an 18% fall in profits for the six months to June 30, Johnston said advertising revenues declined 9.5% in the half year, even though digital revenues grew by 52.1%.

The poor state of the house market meant property print revenues fell by 17.8% over the six months, with the figure for June showing a decline of 33.1%. Employment advertising also suffered a worsening trend, down by 10.4% in the six month period but off by 16.7% in the month of June.

The pound at 9am was US$1.8441 compared to US$1.8380 at the previous close, while the euro at 9am was £0.7981 compared to £0.7975 at the previous close.