Menzies flies into headwinds

Scottish distribution firm John Menzies saw revenues fall in the first half as the firm was hit by tough economic conditions and a weak euro.

Turnover fell to £988.4m from a just over a billion pounds the year before, but pre-tax profits rose slightly to £25.4m.

The company's cargo handling arm, Menzies Aviation, saw turnover increase by 2.3% to £340.2m with underlying operating profit up £0.7m to £14.5m.

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The firm said this result reflected the effects of unfavourable foreign exchange movements.

It added that airline failures resulted in five airline customers ceasing to trade and would result in the loss of £7.7m of annualised revenue.

However, the company stressed net contract gains had offset some of this and the division was making steady progress.

Menzies Distribution, its traditional newspaper distribution service, produced an operating profit of £14.0m, up from £13.7m last year, but on turnover of £648.2m which fell by 3.7%.

The firm put this down to strong cover price growth with 12 titles increasing cover price during the period.

However, it was hit by the launch of the Sun on Sunday, which it said had a detrimental effect on the Sunday newspaper market as a whole as it had a lower cover price than The News of the World and had gained volume from other higher margin titles.

"The group has made a positive start to the second half and is trading in line with the board's expectations," its statement said.

"Global economic conditions and exchange rate movements, particularly the Euro, continue to provide challenges."