http://www.josic.com/yellow-media-captures-digital-market-after-going-through-debt774-restructuring
Yellow Media was the go-to publisher for business directory phone books. However after going through a debt restructuring, the Montreal-based business managed to capitalize on digital advertising. All the localized businesses that use to advertise primarily in phone books are now advertising online with Yellow Media Ltd.
Revenue since the restructuring has grown four-fold. Aravinca Galappatthige, an analyst with Canaccord Genuity Group, stated:
“They’re definitely past the danger point. There’s a lot more upside.”
Yellow Media was taken over by creditors in 2012 after they were unable to cover all their payments. Now they are creating an online marketing blueprint for business directories throughout Europe to follow. For example, Hibu Plc, which is headquartered in the UK, is currently going through a debt restructuring and looking to capture a second chance within the digital market.
Yellow Media has been so successful recently that they’ve grown 230% since December 20, 2013. The percentage of revenue coming from digital media grew from 34% to 43%, and profit rose from $22.2 million to $41.8 million.
Yellow Media still produces and distributes a physically published yellow pages by request from customers. According to Paul Sweeney, the director of North American research for Bloomberg Industries, the reason Yellow Media was able to make the jump to digital so quickly was because they were able to capitalize on the business relationships they already had.
Being the primary business directory, they had business relationships with small town mom-and-pop shops all over the country. They still have a sales force of approximately 1,000 sales people working to maintain those relationships and build new ones. They currently work with over 300,000 merchants who use them for advertising.
Yellow Media has been able to repay approximately $153 million (Canadian) in debt during the 2013 calendar year. While enjoying their recent growth, they are actively working to reestablish relationships that suffered due to their financial problems.