Down, down and further down

It’s been an interesting few days for B2B results, so let’s summarise the good news:

UBM’s print division: revenues down 23.1% to £165.8m and operating profit down 62.8% to £8.9m

Informa: operating profit down 11% to £145.7m in 2009 on revenue down 4% to £1.2bn

Centaur: revenue fell 24%, a loss before tax of £1.7m in the last six months of 2009

RBI: operating profit fell to £89m in 2009 from the £126m the previous year, a 35% drop in consistent currencies. Revenue was down to £891m last year from £987m in 2008, a fall of 18% in consistent currencies.

DMGT: revenues from the group’s B2B operations in the quarter were £186 million, 20% lower than for the corresponding period in 2008. Revenue from DMGT’s Euromoney business fell by 16% to £71 million.

I can’t show you the money

From this morning’s Grauniad

Bid for Informa falls foul of market turmoil
The consortium had been struggling to get the cash together even before this week’s dramatic events.
This week’s unprecedented financial turmoil has claimed its first major non-financial victim with news that the consortium of private equity companies stalking media group Informa have walked away as the funding for the £1.9bn offer disappeared.

Going down (part 2)

From this morning’s Grauniad and FT

“Informa turned down a £1.9bn offer last night from the private-equity groups Providence Equity, Carlyle and Blackstone. The consortium pitched its bid at 450p a share, below the 506p submitted in June as an indicative bid.” (emphasis added)

As with the RBI second round bids, the longer a sales process goes on, the more the value of publishing companies is reduced.