29 April 2010 – trading update

Today’s interim management statement from European regional newspaper group Mecom has confirmed that the decline in advertising revenue continues to moderate.  In the first quarter of the year, advertising revenues fell by just 3% compared with a 13% decline in the last quarter of 2009.  With costs down 7% compared with the first quarter of 2009, group EBITDA is running well ahead of last year and the group remains confident of increasing this by at least 10% in 2010.  Cash generation is also ahead of expectations and although the shares have moved up over the last few days, we re-iterate our 12 month share price target of 350p.