Informa has written down the value of Datamonitor by almost 40 per cent, eight years after the business media group acquired the market intelligence company for £500m.
The FTSE 250 company said on Thursday that it had taken a non-cash impairment charge of £190m on the balance sheet value of the Datamonitor assets it acquired in 2007.
As a result of the writedown, Informa reported a statutory pre-tax loss of £31.2m for 2014, compared to a £115.4m profit in 2013.
Colin Morrison, an expert on the UK media who has managed businesses at RBI, NatMags, Future and Emap, said that in 2007, "industry insiders gasped" at the £500m purchase price, which was a multiple of more than seven times Datamonitor's revenue.
"Looking at the writedown, perhaps we can now see that this deal was almost the high watermark for media-data businesses - or at least of Informa's ability to bid so highly for them," he added.
Stephen Carter, who became Informa's chief executive in January 2014, said the company is considering sales of some of the "consumer forecasting" businesses that were part of the Datamonitor deal.
The legacy Datamonitor assets are part of Informa's Business Intelligence division, which reported a 7.9 per cent decline in revenues to £281.7m in 2014 - making it the worst performer of the group's four units.
Informa's strongest division last year was Global Exhibitions, which posted a 25 per cent increase in revenues to £200.2m. Informa last year paid £237m for Hanley Wood Exhibitions, which has a portfolio of 17 trade shows including World of Concrete and The International Surfaces Event.
The group's largest division, Academic Publishing, increased its revenues just 0.3 per cent to £408.9m last year.
Knowledge & Networking, the division that houses Informa's conferences and training assets, shrank 3.9 per cent to £246.2m.
Johnathan Barrett, analyst at N+1 Singer, said the Business Intelligence unit "looks very weak" and warned that "product closures and disposals remain a risk".
Informa outlined a strategic plan to "simply the business and plot a path for growth" late last year. The group expects to invest between £70m and £90m in these strategic projects over the next three years - with £30m-£40m budgeted for 2015.
The company said its adjusted operating profits, which strips out exceptional items, were £334.1m last year, roughly flat on 2013.
The company announced its total dividend for the year would rise 2 per cent to 19.3p per share.
Informa's shares 2.42 per cent to 528p on Thursday.
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