the sun26 Jul 2013 12:51
YELLOW PAGES is fighting for its life after the firm was handed to bankers.
HIBU, the company responsible for the iconic phone books, has collapsed under £2.3billion debts.
Creditors will now take control of the brand — remembered for its 1980s ads with an old gent, JR Hartley, ringing antique shops to find a copy of a book he penned himself.
Shares, which soared as high as 603p in 2007, were suspended on the stock market yesterday at a meagre 0.17p — meaning its shareholders have effectively been wiped out.
Banks have agreed a refinance deal that cuts £800million off the cash Hibu owes immediately.
Debts at the firm, which has 12,000 staff, were run up in an ill-advised takeover spree before the credit crunch.
It also unsuccessfully tried to bring Yellow Pages into the digital age.
Among its creditors is George Soros, the investor who in 1992 ‘broke’ the BANK OF ENGLAND by betting against the pound.
Others include DEUTSCHE BANK and private equity group BLACKSTONE. Hibu chair Bob Wigley said: “This has been a very demanding year for the group, with some difficult and painful decisions made.”
The group’s results, also out yesterday, recorded a £2billion loss, largely due to the one-time cost of writing off many of its previous acquisitions.
It saw a 27 per cent drop in revenues to £163million at Yellow Pages in the year to March 31, compared with 12 months earlier.
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