Euromoney and Instinet warn of lower revenues after attacks

Media

Euromoney, the international financial publisher, and Instinet, the online trading network for stocks and bonds, became the latest victims of the US terrorist attacks when both groups warned yesterday that profits would be hurt.

Euromoney, 70 per cent owned by the Daily Mail & General Trust, will lose about £1m as a direct result of the attacks and a further £1m indirectly. Pre-tax earnings for the fiscal year to September 2001 is expected to be between £22m to £23m, compared with £22.6m last year.

At Instinet, which is 85 per cent owned by Reuters and separately quoted in New York, the attacks will reduce third-quarter pre-tax profit by $18m (£12.5m) to about $36m. The loss consists primarily of lost trading commission revenue associated with the four-day closure of US equity markets.

Instinet, which had two employees killed, said its clearing and settlement systems and telecoms infrastructure based in the World Trade Centre were covered by insurance.

Douglas Atkin, chief executive of Instinet, said: "From a technical and operation standpoint, our back-up systems performed superbly and rapidly, and our US equity business resumed without incident when the US markets reopened." Instinet shares gained $0.88 to $11.15 in US dealing.

At Euromoney, the attacks led to the cancellation of most of its conferences and training courses due to run in September, the group's busiest month.

Richard Ensor, managing director at Euromoney, said: "Clearly advertising is going to be affected, probably for the rest of 2001. We would hope it would get back to normal by next year."

Euromoney also said the six months to March 2002 would be negatively affected. In response, the company's share price sank 47.5p to 217.5p, its lowest level for more than five years.

Bearing the brunt of the slowdown was the US edition of Institutional Investor, a periodical for financial market professionals. In addition, the postponement of the International Monetary Fund/World Bank annual meetings, due to take place in Washington this week, has led to the loss of significant meeting-related revenue since daily publications published around the event have been cancelled.

Business in European and emerging markets, so far, has proved resilient, Mr Ensor said. That helped the group's flagship Euromoney title escape the worst of the current slowdown.