Business

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Yellow Pages repositions brand for digital age

By: Staff Writer

Posted: 02/12/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

MONTREAL -- As consumers use more social media, mobile applications and the Internet, Yellow Pages Income Fund (TSX:YLO.UN) is planning a digital makeover.

"We're going to look at repositioning our brand, repositioning the logo to be more representative of this new digital universe," president and CEO Marc Tellier said Thursday.

Yellow Pages will also target small- and medium-sized businesses for more digital growth, said Tellier, after the fund announced Thursday that its fourth-quarter profit grew 24 per cent to $124.6 million.

"The more content, the more information there is on a business, the more the consumer will engage," Tellier said.

"The local search audience is a growing audience."

The Yellow Pages' logo is a pair of fingers walking across a directory.

"Most companies would love to have the recognition of the 'fingers' that we have. I think there's really an opportunity for it to be more reflective of the breadth of solutions that we offer."

Yellow Pages is on track to have 20 per cent of its revenues in 2010 come from digital applications, Tellier said.

But he said he hasn't yet seen a turning point when digital and print revenues will be equal.

In its financial results, Yellow Pages said its quarterly profit amounted to 25 cents per unit, up from 19 cents per unit or $100.5 million for the fourth quarter of 2008.

However, the Montreal-based publisher of advertising directories said its fourth-quarter revenue fell 4.7 per cent from a year before, dropping to $405.7 million in the final three months of 2009 from $425.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Yellow Pages also said it will continue to distribute 80 cents per trust unit annually until next December, when it converts to a dividend-paying corporation and will pay a monthly dividend amounting to 65 cents per share annually.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Drew McReynolds said Yellow Pages' ad base equals 40 per cent penetration of the one million small- and medium-sized businesses in Canada.

-- The Canadian Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 12, 2010 B5

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