(Adds CFO quotes, updates shares)
By Paul Sandle
LONDON, May 28 (Reuters) - Daily Mail owner DMGT
said the COVID-19 pandemic caused revenue at its consumer media
business to fall by a third in April and by an estimated 30% in
May compared to the same months last year.
The British company said that despite sharp falls in
advertising and circulation caused by the lockdown, the consumer
unit would be close to breaking even this month, demonstrating
the strength of its print titles and MailOnline website.
It reported flat revenue for the half-year ending in March,
before most of the impact of the coronavirus crisis.
Advertising across both print and digital fell 46%
year-on-year in April, and would be down 45% in May, it said.
Circulation revenue was showing signs of improvement this month,
when it would be down just 9% compared to down 17% in April.
Finance chief Tim Collier said readers wanted to read DMGT's
newspapers, which include the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, "i"
and Metro freesheet, and they were increasingly managing to get
their hands on copies during lockdown.
He said moves to ease the lockdown, with more shops opening
next month, would hopefully increase advertising demand.
DMGT's events and exhibition and property information
businesses were also hit by the crisis, with all events
cancelled from March to August and both commercial and
residential property transactions slowing sharply.
But it said its insurance risk, U.S. property information
and education technology businesses were resilient, with
underlying revenue growing 5% in April when the pandemic was at
its peak in Europe.
"All of our businesses are market leading and I am highly
confident that they will come out of this global crisis stronger
and fitter," Chief Executive Paul Zwillenberg said.
DMGT reported underlying pretax profit of 56 million pounds
($68.7 million) for the six months to end-March on flat revenue
of 690 million pounds.
It increased its half-year dividend by 3% to 7.5 pence,
which it said reflected the strength of its trading performance.
DMGT's shares were trading down 6% at 707.5 pence.
($1 = 0.8151 pounds)
(Reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by David Clarke and Peter
Graff)
