Provincial titles feel downturn

Economic gloom is spreading to Independent Newspapers' regional titles, managing director Mike Robson said yesterday.

He told the Society of Investment Analysts that conditions had cooled in the past month or so because of general economic gloom.

"If you add to that overreaction to the Olympics, people are just not in a very positive frame of mind."

Mr Robson said provincial newspapers had been having a better time on the back of rural commodity prices than metropolitan ones.

But now, he said, "some of the benefits of the rural upturn are being mitigated somewhat by the general economic news."

Auckland had remained flat, with the real estate market relatively depressed, while Wellington was "travelling along well," driven by the influx of recentralised Government, and Christchurch was doing well.

Waikato remained sluggish, which he said might be due to a backwash from Auckland's malaise.

Retail figures for August published this week showed sales in Waikato were the worst of all regions. Sales growth was strongest in both the South Island regions.

INL shares closed unchanged at 343c yesterday. The consensus is that INL will this year post a similar profit to its June 2000 year profit of $34.6 million.

- NZPA