IFRS cuts Daily Mail by £12m
Publisher DMGT sees its pre-tax profit hit by new accounting standards
Daily Mail & General Trust’s interim pre-tax profit will be £12m lower following a restatement under international financial reporting standards.
Link: IFRS update 2 – a management briefing
The group, which publishes the London Evening Standard, the Metro and its namesake title, said that half this figure would be based on a ‘timing difference’ which will ‘reverse’ into the second half of the year.
During a conference call to analysts, the company said that its net assets in its opening group balance sheet on 4 October 2004 will be reduced by £231m, and was ‘mainly due to the impact of the new pensions’ standard IAS19′.
DMGT posted a 7% increase in profits to £114.5m for the first six months of the year, under existing accounting rules. It said that its statutory interim post-tax profit will be £24m higher under IFRS rather than under UK GAAP, due to the requirement not to amortise goodwill under the new rules.
A DMGT statement to analysts added that there will be no impact on cashflows or on historic net debt under IFRS, however, it said that the presentation of the cashflow statement would change.