Future estimates that challenging recent market conditions will reduce pre-tax profit by from 拢22m to around 拢17m, and the company's shares have plummeted by 16.2%, down 8p to 45.5p this morning. Last year, Future reported a pre-tax loss of 拢8.9m on revenue of 拢212.3m.
In a trading statement, Future said the area of underperformance was primarily newsstand, and the magazines most affected have been performance car titles, certain women's interest magazines and, to a lesser extent, some games titles.
Greg Ingham, chief executive of Future, said: "The profit is down from where we expected it to be. This is due to circulation issues on a number of magazines. Most businesses had challenges in recent months and we got caught along with that.
"We are taking a clear look at our business for the rest of the year and, given market conditions and consumer uncertainty, we expect to be 拢4m to 拢5m lower than we thought."
The board will now remain focused on the longer-term prospects of the company and believes that the bias of first-half to second-half profits will strongly favour the second half-year to a much greater extent than previously indicated.
Future's most recent magazine launch was Official Nintendo Magazine in February.
The group will announce its interim results for the half year to March 31 2006 on June 6 2006.
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