Times Mirror Profit Dips in 4th Quarter

Times Mirror Co. said Wednesday that its fourth-quarter profit fell 8% from a year earlier, owing to investments in the company’s newspaper group and a large, one-time gain on the sale of assets in the year-ago period.

However, the Los Angeles-based media company’s diluted earnings per share rose in the three months ended Dec. 31, to 73 cents from 64 cents a year earlier, because the company had 15% fewer shares outstanding in the latest period. The results were in line with securities analysts’ expectations.

For all of 1997, Times Mirror’s net income rose 21% from the previous year, to $250.3 million, or $2.29 per diluted share, from $206.4 million, or $1.53 per share. Its full-year revenue slipped to $3.32 billion from $3.40 billion, mainly because of the 1996 divestiture of the company’s college-publishing operations.

The full-year results included a record performance by Times Mirror’s newspaper group--led by its flagship Los Angeles Times--in response to strong advertising revenue and circulation gains.

The newspaper group’s 1997 pretax profit from operations rose 25%, to $381 million from $304.7 million the prior year, and eclipsed the previous high for the group set in 1987. Times Mirror’s other newspapers include Newsday in New York; the Baltimore Sun; the Hartford Courant, Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time, all in Connecticut; and the Morning Call in Allentown, Pa. “Led by the record profit performance of our newspaper publishing segment, Times Mirror significantly exceeded its financial objectives in 1997,” Mark H. Willes, Times Mirror chairman, president and chief executive officer, and publisher of The Times, said in a statement.

“In 1998, we expect to make continued earnings progress and to continue to invest aggressively in the growth of our businesses,” he said.

Fourth-quarter investments to enhance the company’s growth and efficiency--mainly at the newspaper group--resulted in one-time charges of more than $31 million. Those costs, together with higher newsprint expenses, reduced the newspaper group’s operating income for the quarter to $90.1 million from $105.5 million a year earlier.

Meanwhile, the company’s professional-information unit posted a strong rebound from last year. In the fourth quarter, its operating profit soared to $52.2 million from $19.8 million a year earlier, after excluding restructuring charges in the year-ago period.

The results were announced after financial markets closed Wednesday. Times Mirror’s stock closed at $58.06 a share, down 75 cents, in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

* MORE EARNINGS: D6, D12