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Metro International S.A. is a Luxembourg limited-liability company
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METRO INTERNATIONAL TO PROVIDE NEW QUARTERLY RESULTS SEGMENTATION
20 April 2006
Metro International S.A. ("Metro"), the international newspaper group, today announced that it will revise the operating results segmentation in its quarterly financial results with immediate effect. Metro will provide new geographical reporting segments in its results for the first quarter ended 31 March 2006, to be announced on 25 April 2006, and thereafter.
Metro will introduce three new geographical segments - 'Northern Europe' (comprising the operations in Holland, Finland, Denmark, Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary); 'Southern Europe' (comprising the operations in France, Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal); and 'Equity Participations' (comprising the joint venture operations in Canada and Seoul). The current 'Rest of World' segment will therefore now only comprise the Hong Kong and Chile operations.
The French operations will now be included in the 'Southern Europe' segment as they no longer represent a sufficient proportion of the Group's results to qualify for disclosure as a separate segment. However, in order to maintain reporting consistency, Metro will disclose results for the French operations in the first quarter report as part of the commentary on the 'Southern Europe' reporting segment.
The current 'Online' segment will be renamed as 'Other Businesses' and continue to comprise the Metro Online and Travel businesses.
Sales and operating income (earnings before interest and taxes) numbers will be provided for each of the above segments. The 'Sweden' and 'United States' segments will continue to be reported as separate segments with sales and EBIT results. The sales reported for the Headquarters segment will comprise the Group's receivable franchise fees from the Metro-branded operations in Pusan (South Korea) and St Petersburg (Russia).
In line with Metro's objective to cater for the information needs of investors in the most appropriate manner, the above changes follow a review of Metro's segmental reporting and disclosure policies in consultation with the financial community. They are intended to provide further transparency and a clearer picture of the Group's operating profile and performance.
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For further information, please visit www.metro.lu, or contact:
Pelle Törnberg, President & CEO tel: +44 (0) 20 7016 1300
Rob Newman, Corporate Communications tel: +44 (0) 20 7321 5029
ABOUT METRO INTERNATIONAL
Metro is the largest and fastest growing international newspaper in the world. 64 Metro editions are published in 91 major cities in 19 countries in 18 languages across Europe, North & South America and Asia. Metro has a unique global reach - attracting a young, active, well-educated Metropolitan audience of over 18.5 million daily readers and more than 37 million weekly readers. Metro has an equal number of male and female readers and 70% are under the age of 45.
The press release can be downloaded from the following link: