Story here from the Wall Street Journal:
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–Gannett Co. (GCI) Chief Financial Officer Gracia Martore said Wednesday that the newspaper publisher’s fourth-quarter revenue is down 17% so far, marking the company’s best quarterly performance so far this year.
At an investor conference in New York City, Martore said the company’s top-line performance was 10 percentage points better in November than it was in October.
For the year, Martore said she expects the company to post revenue of $5.6 billion, down 18% from 2008.
She said the company is “clearly comfortable with the high-end” of current fourth-quarter earnings estimates, which range from 48 cents a share to 62 cents a share.
Martore said she expects the company to have $3.1 billion in debt by the end of the year, and that it will be comfortably in compliance with its debt covenants.
She acknowledged that advertisers may remain cautious in the early part of 2010, and that the risk of another dip in the economy remains.
“In a very difficult year, Gannett generated substantial profitability, improved its capital structure as we said we would, and generated a significant level of cash flow,” Martore said, adding that the company will be well-positioned for an economic recovery in 2010.
Gannett executives at the conference said they won’t be following their normal custom of raising advertising rates next year in a sign of the difficulties facing ad markets amid the economic downturn and the rise of digital media.