Directors are confident the value will go up when the economy recovers, but the charge means the Irish company’s profit of €96.6 million (£85.2 million) in H108 looks like ancient history. First half revenue was down 14.9 percent to €608.8 million (£537.2 million) compared to H108. INM isn’t breaking out its digital performance.

SEE ALSO: Earnings: INM Risks Debt Breach, Indie Income Sliding

There is frankly no good news for the Independent titles: INM’s UK titles made an operating loss of €3.8 million (£3.3 million)—a 194.4 percent drop in profits since H108. UK revenue fell 28.5 percent (17.6 percent at constant currencies) to €82.6 million (£72.8 million); ad revenue was down by one third. Cost savings of €24.5 million (£21.6 million), helped by moving in with Associated Newspapers, were not quite enough to offset the declines. Earnings release (pdf).

—Outdoor sell-off: INM today announces it has conditionally agreed to sell its INM Outdoor business, the largest outdoor advertiser in South Africa, for around €98 million (£87.4 million); a sale of German price comparison site Verivox is expected by the end of the year and the pair will fetch €110 million. The selling of shares in Cascade and Indian publisher Jagran Prakashan contributed €37 million £32.6 million)—so the company says it’s on track to meet its €150 million (£132.2 million) target in disposals to help with its debt pile.

—Cost-cutting: INM shaved a hefty €91 million (£80.2 million) or 14.5 percent from its operating costs in the half. Headcount is down by 11.9 percent or 290 posts (resulting in a €10.8 million/£9.5 million exceptional charge) although through not filling vacant posts INM’s staff list reduced by 900 to 8,700 in the half.

—Poor outlook: CEO Gavin O’Reilly, who took over from his father Anthony this year, can only call these figures “resilient” rather than impressive and predicts operating profit (before exceptionals) for 2009 as a whole to be “at the lower end” of the €180 million-€210 million scale INM forecasted in June.

—Debt standstill: The long-running drama of INM’s quest to meet a €300 million bond payment drags on and on. According to a market update, a new month-long standstill agreement has been signed with lenders until September 25. Creditors will be somewhat calmed by the cash from INM’s Outdoor sell-off, but how many more assets does the company have to sell?