The Yell Group, which run website Yell.com, have announced bumper losses during the previous financial year with the company currently having approximately £2.2 billion debt while being valued at only just under £60 million.
In the previous year alone, Yell have chalked up massive losses of £1.4 billion and the share price has lost nearly 25% of their previous value.
So what are the reasons for these astronomical losses for Yell? Well some experts are pointing to, what has turned out to be, some disastrous acquisitions of online directory companies over the previous years, believing that these other companies may have been overvalued massively by the Yell Group.
In addition to massive losses, the troubled company has also announced a drop in revenues, which, under the circumstances, could be expected.
The recent announcement of the losses is in stark contrast to the previous years results where Yell announced nearly £70 million in profit.
Yell are looking at numerous different ways to try to recover from the situation, including a strategy which would see them transform to a predominantly online business. Apparently one reason which has exacerbated problems at the company is the fact that this ‘transformation’ is not happening as fast as they originally thought it could.
The company is believed to be looking at launching new products but is apparently having trouble due to the sheer scale and logistics of the task at hand.
Yell are reported to be in discussions with lenders and investors to see about possible restructuring of the companies debt, the majority of which is due to mature in 2014.
This news has prompted more negative comments from customers about the company with one commenter on The Telegraph‘s website stating:
“As a yellow pages advertiser, it’s great to know I’m helping to fund all this bafoonery. “
