(By Balaseshan) McClatchy Co. (NYSE: MNI), a news and information provider, slipped to a quarterly loss due to loss on extinguishment of debt related to the refinancing of its secured bonds, as well as higher costs and expenses.
Loss for the fourth quarter was $30.02 million or $0.35 per share, compared to a profit of $42.01 million or $0.49 per share in the same period last year. Adjusted profit fell to $33.8 million from $43.2 million.
Revenue increased to $355.66 million from $351.44 million. On a 13-week basis, revenue declined 5.3% to $333.0 million.
Advertising revenues fell 6.3% to about $253.9 million. On a 13-week basis, total digital advertising revenues grew 3.5%, with digital-only advertising revenues up 14.9%. Circulation revenues declined 1.9% to about $65.7 million.
Based on preliminary data, the company estimates that January 2013 revenues were down in the same range as the fourth quarter on a 13-week basis. Given the incremental revenues from Plus Program, MNI projects the decline in total revenues in the first quarter of 2013 to improve somewhat compared to the decline it reported in the fourth quarter of 2012.
Despite additional investments in new revenue initiatives and enterprise-wide operating systems and higher pension expenses, which together are expected to total about $5 million, McClatchy predicts cash expenses in the first quarter to be flat compared to last year.
For full year 2013, the company expects investments in new products and systems will total about $10 million and that pension expenses could be higher by $10 million to $12 million. Even so, MNI projects total cash expenses to be flat with 2012 expenses on a 52-week basis.
McClatchy estimates that total capital expenditures for 2013 to be about $33 million, with $12 million of the amount going towards final costs of the new Miami production facility.
MNI is trading down 3.34% at $2.89 on Thursday. The stock has been trading between $1.50 and $3.46 for the past 52 weeks.